Fates Be Changed
by The Homing Pigeon
Summary: An orphan and an outcast, living two lives that should never have intercepted. However what could happen if a nudge forces these worlds to collide? With a new name and a new father will the Boy-Who-Lived accept what Fate marked him for? A Bruce Banner/Harry Potter father/son relationship. Skip to Chapter 13 for the start of the Avengers.
1. Chapter 1 - November

Hello there!  
A few bits of housekeeping before we get started:  
a) I do not own the Avengers or Harry Potter, all credit goes to the relevant authors/companies that own the rights to the various characters.  
b) The timeline of Harry Potter has been shifted back to align with Avengers, so Harry is born in 2001 instead of 1980. Other than that most other events are locked in, I believe the Hulk storyline has been butchered a little to make things work but you should pick up the gist of the changed line.  
c) Clarification of speech types: "talking", ' _thoughts_ ', " **talking in a different language that I shall not attempt to translate** ".  
d) Warnings for: Child abuse, bad language on occasion, violence… Possibly more but those are the main things. It's not going to be worse than what is seen in the seventh Harry Potter movie so I reckon I am safe with a T. However if you feel it deserves being upgraded then please tell me and I shall change this to an M.

I am aiming to post three chapters to start and see what people think of it, after that I will be aiming for weekly updates… probably on Fridays. Thanks for reading!

Chapter One - November

Harry Potter, orphan and unwilling burden of his aunt and uncle, curled up in his cupboard and tried to ignore the stabbing pain emanating from his very empty stomach. He had tried so hard to complete all his chores that day, but the list had been impossibly long again and he ended up being locked in his cupboard with nothing beyond a glass of water. It didn't help that some of the chores he had to do were really difficult for him to finish, like hoovering the entire house when the hoover weighed more than he did and was taller than he was.

This was the third day in a row without anything more than a few crusts left over from breakfast each day to eat. Dudley had picked up on this and had gloated over the wide variety of foods he had for breakfast before promptly eating as much of it all as he could. It was a testament to his determination that he ate more than his mother, and probably getting close to the same as Uncle Vernon, and he seemed to very much enjoy the mounds of sausages and bacon that he sometimes waved at Harry. He acted as if Harry didn't already know what was on the table, which was impossible seeing as _he_ had cooked it all. He had learnt to cook last year so Aunt Petunia now had him up and cooking breakfast for her two boys while she spent the time sipping tea and watching like a hawk to ensure that he did not eat anything nor burn the food. No one ever thanked him nor thought about how much it hurt to be dismissed to wash up whilst the trio happily chattered about mundane things.

Of course, freaks didn't deserve praise or sentiments reserved for normal people. He should be grateful enough that he had a roof over his head and clothes on his back, according to Uncle Vernon. It had not taken Harry long to remember his relative's lessons that he was a burden that was only tolerated out of the goodness of their hearts. And seeing as they already spent money on his clothes and food, and would be paying for his education, he shouldn't complain that he received nothing on his birthday or Christmas.

Dudley once again had spotted the discrepancy in their treatment and was increasingly filling the breakfast and dinner chatter with demands for toys, and loud tantrums when Uncle Vernon gently mentioned if something was too pricey. Harry meanwhile kept silent and cleaned the dishes, thinking of the small raggedy black wolf that was sat next to his pillow. That was the only gift he had ever received that he knew about, and apparently it had been something he had been given as a baby by his parents before they were killed.

That night, as the hunger pangs kept him from sleeping, Harry buried his face into the soft and well-worn fur of the toy wolf and sighed unhappily at the thought of another Christmas approaching without any chance of toys. He didn't cry over a fact he was well used to, but he couldn't stop himself from wishing for a different home where he was loved.

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Bruce Banner sighed and tried to get comfy on his poor excuse for a bed. He was being generous when he called it a bed, seeing as it was merely a mattress on the floor, but it was better than some places he had slept so he counted it as a bed. His fugitive lifestyle meant that he had had to make do in some very squalid conditions so he was grateful for what he had. This time round he had managed to rent an actual flat, with multiple rooms designated for different uses, to call home for the meantime.

He had been in Kochi for a month so far and he was starting to get used to the city, he was well enough acquainted with the area to travel happily at night now. Although the 'Other Guy' meant that he never had to worry about the threat of death from a mugging gone wrong, Bruce was determined to keep his presence as low key as possible. And a huge angry green monster was definitely not conducive to staying low key.

However one thing that guaranteed that he was always tolerated in an area, even if his white skin and raggedy look raised a few eyebrows whenever he arrived in an area, was the fact that he was a passably good doctor. At the start of his career he had joked with his friends and acquaintances that he was 'not that kind of doctor'. But when he had been forced to go on the run three years ago he had learnt that he knew enough of the basics from helping dorm mates study that he could diagnose and treat the basics. After the first time he had helped a sick family in Mexico he had read as many cheap medical textbooks as he could find and improved. There was never a call for a doctor of gamma research, but there were always people looking for cheap healthcare, and once he could prove his usefulness Bruce found that the locals would be happy to help him hide. It was a sad fact of the world that there were always people suffering that could be cured if they had the money for treatment. So Bruce had kitted himself out with the best equipment that he could scrounge together on a minimalistic budget as he travelled and set to doing some good in the world

After he had proved his usefulness when he arrived to Kochi the locals had accepted him to the neighbourhood and he had managed to rent a flat and settled down in the area. Although Kerala was one of the richer states in India there were still many pockets of civilisation that could not afford the healthcare they desperately needed even though there were numerous large hospitals within Kochi city. So Bruce had been welcomed once he had assured his first patients that he only wished them to pay what they could afford. It meant that he had to ration his electricity usage to ensure he could pay the bills, and if he could get away without cooking then he did so to avoid using more power. Showers were also a rare luxury to conserve what could be rather temperamental water reserves, but he was able to help people and stay hidden which suited him fine.

There were only two problems that Bruce had discovered in regards to settling in a relatively modern city, but thankfully only one of the two was a major concern. Kochi was starting to attract a decent amount of tourism from western countries thanks to the cities rich history, colourful culture and impressive food. Apparently rickshaws, or tuk-tuks as the tourists called them, were an attraction in themselves almost like a ride at a theme park. Bruce did not begrudge the city the extra income that these people provided, but he was unhappy with the extra threat that these fellow white skinned people presented. Although the 'Hulk' had been missing from the media for about ten years Bruce was always wary of going near tourist areas just in case one of them may be able to tell others of his presence. Even worse, a tourist could be linked to General Ross and know _exactly_ who he was. Better to steer clear completely to be on the safe side. Thankfully the neighbourhood he had settled in was quite far off the beaten track for tourists and there were few restaurants, bars or points of interest to lure them into the area.

The second problem, that posed no physical problem at all, was that Kerala was a relatively progressive and religiously diverse state. Churches sat on the same streets as Mosques and Temples, and all three religions celebrated their holy events openly. Often even those who did not believe in the religion would join in the festivities at the relevant times when their neighbours were celebrating. Christmas was approaching fast and although there would be no white Christmas the local Christians were starting to save up to ensure they had a greater meal than normal on that day.

Over the ten years that Bruce had been running he had often ended up in countries that did not have large Christian communities so he was able to avoid this familiar festivity. However he had exhausted the remote African communities and had been moving eastwards so this year he would endure Christmas. One of his patients the day before had asked whether he was going home to celebrate with his family, and Bruce had managed to gently inform that he was alone so was not celebrating with anyone.

Although it was the truth, it hurt the man deeply that even his closest acquaintances would run a mile if he turned up on their doorstep at Christmas. It was a widely known, and tightly kept, secret back home that something _very_ bad had happened to Bruce Banner. Something so bad that he had had to flee for his own safety. No one would want to be associated with something that could be as bad as _that_ , especially at Christmas time. It seemed that even animals could sense something evil and wrong lurked inside him, he had tried to make a pet out of a stray dog once but it fled from him very quickly.

So all Bruce had to look forward to was yet another night alone, with chapatis and vegetable curry in lieu of an actual roast dinner as he had often eaten on Christmas Day as a child. Even though his childhood was a timeline of events that were best forgotten, Christmas had been the one day of the year where you could pretty much guarantee peace within the Banner house.

It was a very startled Bruce that found himself almost wishing to be back home with his alcoholic father and abused mother simply to feel some kind of human attachment to something.


	2. Chapter 2 - December 21st

Chapter Two – December 21st

"I've had enough of your uselessness, boy!" Uncle Vernon roared angrily.

Harry cowered in the corner as his large uncle ranted at him. The day had been going so well, he had been unable to be assigned any outside jobs as it had been raining non-stop for the entirety of the night and even his relatives were not idiotic enough to risk their nephew getting pneumonia. Mostly their reasoning came from the fact that the boy would be unable to work, but Harry was grateful for whatever reason had forced their hand as he had been given inside jobs all day. He had dusted every surface, cleaned the toilets and mopped the kitchen floor. However it was this last chore that proved to be his downfall, as he slipped on the wet floor when carrying the roast lamb from the oven to the counter to cool before carving. There had been a few seconds of silence after the sounds of clattering metal had ended before Uncle Vernon started shouting.

"At this rate you are likely to ruin Christmas for us due to your clumsiness and slovenliness," Vernon carried on as he grabbed Harry by the scruff of his neck.

The only thing that comforted Harry at this point was the knowledge that his uncle had been complaining loudly of how tired he was. Apparently he had been rushed off his feet trying to get as much work done as possible before his week off over Christmas. This meant that he was likely too tired to bother beating Harry today. However that didn't mean punishment was out of the question completely.

Vernon ensured he had a tight grasp on the back of Harry's neck before marching to the backdoor and slamming it open. Harry was rather brutally shoved through the doorway first, and ended up face planting the sopping ground as his feet caught on the door lip. Vernon ignored the fallen boy and stomped forward, ignoring the cry of pain as his shoed feet was placed firmly on his nephew's wrist. He unlocked and opened the shed door before returning to grab the boy from the mud and dragged him forward. Barely a minute later was the trembling child flung into the shed amongst the various gardening tools and machines.

"You will stay in here until I decide you can return to the house," Vernon spat then slammed the door shut.

Harry had only been able to sit up and gingerly feel the scrape on his left palm before the door was wrenched open again. For a second Harry hoped that Uncle Vernon had changed his mind, but that was quickly crushed. It was indeed his uncle at the door, but the man simply flung a ragged blanket and half a loaf of bread at his nephew before the door was shut once more. Harry heard the rattle of a padlock on the bolt before squelched footsteps faded away.

The orphan stifled a sob as the pain from his wrist and hand started to increase, and as his body steadily cooled. Although the shed was waterproof, there was no insulation or extra blankets for the boy to use, so his only protection from the winter temperatures was a poorly fitted shed door and the thin blanket from his cupboard. There was even a hole in the back corner of the shed, which meant that the walls of the shed were even more pointless.

Miserably Harry wiped the worst of the water and mud off his clothes and glasses using some gardening gloves before curling up in the blanket. His uncle had been the most angry that Harry had seen in many months, so he highly doubted that he would be allowed back inside within the next few days. He might even spend Christmas in here, he realised.

At that moment Harry felt the most alone and unwanted that he had ever experienced in his short life, and he wished fervently that he would fall asleep that night and not wake up. He had long ago given up on the fairy tale idea of being whisked away to a happy place, but his last thought before he fell asleep was a wish that he would not wake up here in the morning.

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"Two days and this will all be over," Bruce muttered to himself as he lay once more on his bed. Normally he made a point of only approaching his mattress when he intended to sleep, but he was so tired he ignored his self-imposed rules and stretched out gratefully.

Recently one of the nearby elderly gentlemen had been struck with an unusual illness and Bruce had been spending the last week tending the man on top of his regular patients. After a short while Bruce had realised that the man was around 80 years of age and he had merely had the flu that struck him worse than most. Bruce was not one to base his level of care on the payment he could eke out of the patient or their social standing, but he knew that the man had been instrumental in finding the funding for the local school and therefore deserved the best attention that the American could offer.

He'd been visiting the man each morning at around 7am and then again when he finished his rounds around 10, and he was bone tired and couldn't face putting effort into cooking. However he had no suitable ingredients in his cupboards to cobble together a cold meal and he was ravenous, his last meal being close to nine hours ago. The only option therefore was to walk to the nearest restaurant and pay for a meal, an expensive luxury that Bruce avoided at all costs. But he knew that Shabeeb and Madu would have food available immediately and he could be fed and in bed in half an hour, rather than an hour later if he started cooking now. He could forgo a meal and merely sleep, but then he would be running on less energy tomorrow and that could be disastrous if there was an emergency.

So with a groan the scientist dragged himself off of his mattress, shoved his feet into his shoes and staggered out of the door. The place he was heading to was ten minutes away through a few dark and narrow alleyways before his path led him to more open and pleasant roads. Bruce was happy when he saw the white church at the end of the road, as he knew his destination was barely fifty metres away. He ducked through the low doorway and sat at his usual table, tucked at the back where the entire room was visible.

" **We haven't seen you in a while Doctor,"** Madu said politely as she approached Bruce's table.

" **I have had much work,"** Bruce said slowly as he tried to speak correctly despite his tired brain making it much harder.

" **How is Adesh doing? We heard you have been tending him,"** Madu continued.

" **He is better, he just needs lots of rest and he will be fine,"** Bruce informed them.

" **Good, he is lucky to have you near. Do you want your usual?"**

" **Please,"** Bruce smiled as she walked to the kitchen to place his order.

In no time at all the vegetable biryani was in front of him, with a glass cup of locally produced herbal tea. A few local men filled the other tables, smoking and consuming a variety of beverages, and they thankfully left the outsider to his meal. Bruce was grateful that the culture here meant that he was not often cornered by curious individuals for answers to their questions, as could often occur with suspicious locals in western countries. Here, they knew he helped people and left him alone unless they needed his services, no awkward probing questions about his past asked.

Despite his initial hunger, Bruce soon found himself poking the rice dish around his plate and yawning. It was almost eleven in the evening, and he had said he would check in on Adesh at six tomorrow morning.

" **I'll pack that up for you to take home."**

Bruce had been so deeply engrossed in his thoughts that he had not noticed the approach of the man. Deep in his brain the somethingness stirred defensively. Bruce quickly pushed it back down before looking up and smiling.

" **If you wouldn't mind, thanks Shabeeb,"** Bruce said to the man.

The couple who ran this café were some of the closest to Bruce as they were the ones who had recommended him the house that he rented and had been his first patients. However they still only knew very little about him, probably as much as the rest of the neighbourhood, and Bruce was determined to keep it that way. He quickly paid his bill and left with at least half his meal wrapped up. Bruce was slightly suspicious that they had put a bit more of the dish into the package, but he wasn't going to confront them about it as he was too tired to care. He occasionally got discounts at stalls or shops from grateful patients, so Bruce wouldn't be surprised if his suspicions were correct.

Thankfully the evening was warm but not unbearably humid so Bruce took his time wandering on a less direct route home. Although he felt physically tired his mind was working too much for him to easily fall asleep immediately, so he hoped the winding route home may help. The area was not exactly aesthetically pleasing, but the wind that blew in from the coast helped to keep the air from stagnating in the narrow streets. There were a lot of small stalls around the small harbour that sold fresh fish each morning, and the few trinket stands that had started to appear were becoming popular with tourists to the area. As of yet he had not been called upon to help treat a tourist, but the fact that he obviously was fluent in English worried him that someday someone might prefer him over the certified hospitals. Bruce knew that there were travel websites that people put comments on, and an American doctor living in Kochi charging extremely low rates was bound to attract attention.

So wrapped up in his thoughts was he that the man almost completely missed the tiny huddled mass hiding down an unlit street that ran off the one he was using. He only noticed its presence when his enhanced hearing caught the almost completely stifled sniffle as he passed by the darkened spot. For a second he thought that it may have been a nocturnal creature that caused the sound, but when he heard it again Bruce was certain that the cause of the noise was a human.

" **Hello, who's there?"** Bruce called quietly.

His gaze snapped onto the small bundle that froze at the sound of his voice, and Bruce hesitated. He could not in all good conscience leave someone outside alone, even if the streets were relatively safe around here at night. However the child did not seem happy to know it had been found, and it couldn't be anything other than a child to be so small.

" **Are you alright? Where are your parents?"** Bruce carried on as he slowly approached the bundle.

The child didn't move or speak, and Bruce was soon standing a few feet away from the small blanket covered figure. At a guess he would think that the child was about four years old from the size of the ball it had curled itself into. Bruce had not heard, seen or smelt another human around so he knew this was not a trap. He only suspected a trap because people knew that he was a sucker for children and could never leave one in danger or pain. As he was pretty certain he was safe he dithered, and after another minute of indecisiveness he crouched down and gently placed a hand on the bundle.

"Please no!" the child yelped and flinched so badly that Bruce's hand was dislodged from the blanket.

Bruce's eyes widened in shock as he realised that the voice spoke in flawless English without any trace of an accent. Certainly no small Indian child could achieve that unless it had been raised in isolation with perfect speakers of the language. Bruce's curiosity was ignited and he shuffled a tiny bit closer to the child. Although it had reacted badly to his touch before, Bruce reached out once more but more gently to attempt to be comforting. Again it flinched but the feather light touch wasn't dislodged and Bruce held his hand on the shoulder, and eventually the child seemed to relax a tiny bit into it.

"It's okay little one, I won't hurt you," Bruce said soothingly as he gently rubbed his hand up the arm of the small child.

There was no reply from the still hidden child, so Bruce carefully found the edge of the blanket and tugged it slowly away from the body of the child. As he had guessed, but was completely surprised by the thought, a small white child was curled up tightly and looked up at him with terrified eyes.

"Hello there," Bruce said soothingly with a smile as he tucked the blanket under the child's chin.

When it became obvious that Bruce was not going to hurt it, the child uncurled a tiny bit and moved so that Bruce could see more details of its face. Messy black hair stuck out at odd angles from the boys scalp, and the uneven lengths suggested a lack of care when it was last cut. It was a bit too dark for Bruce to make out much of the child's face, but the boy looked very pale and didn't seem to be able to focus properly on Bruce. What he could plainly see where the bright green eyes that stared at him with such deep mistrust that the tiny glimmer of hope was almost completely smothered. It made Bruce's heart clench in worry that a child with such a look could not possibly have had the loving upbringing it should have had.

"What are you doing here?" Bruce asked gently.

"My uncle shut me in here," it answered.

The voice was too quiet and neutral that a gender couldn't easily be decided, although Bruce guessed it was a boy. The adult thought over that answer and came to the conclusion the child was delirious or had some mental problems, either way he could not afford to muck up and end up leaving the child on the street.

"Why did he do that?" he asked again, deciding to not point out the fact they were sitting in an alleyway.

"I fell over and dropped the food on the floor, and he was angry that I would ruin Christmas so he left me here so I couldn't do that," the possibly-a-boy said emotionlessly.

"Where are we?" Bruce played along a bit.

"In the shed, it's cold but at least he didn't beat me. My arm hurts though," the boy said the last bit quietly almost like an afterthought.

"Well we should go and check that it is not too badly hurt shouldn't we?" Bruce said, slightly worried that the delusional child was not overly worried about the pain his uncle had caused him. Overall he was starting to get a rather worrying picture of the child's home life painted in his head, and Bruce did not care for it at all.

"We can't go anywhere, we're locked in the shed," the probably-male said, but then looked at Bruce thoughtfully, "how did you get in here though?"

"You can go anywhere in your dreams though can't you? And anyone can visit you too. So do you want to come with me? We can eat food and sleep on a comfy mattress in the warm," Bruce suggested.

He had never encountered anyone with severe mental problems before, but if the child was certain that he was dreaming then playing along with that would likely be the easiest way to get him to cooperate. It was obvious the child was alone and abandoned, so Bruce needed to take him somewhere safe and deal with the consequences later.

"That sounds nice," the boy almost seemed to smile but whimpered as he put pressure on his arms.

"I shall carry you if you want?" Bruce asked in concern.

The child seemed terrified and unsure so Bruce sighed and picked the child up before it could protest and turned towards his house. With the new intriguing puzzle in his arms Bruce strode as quickly as he could on the quickest route back and the pair were inside his sparse living room barely five minutes later. They didn't speak at all on the way back, the child seemed too nervous to talk and Bruce was too busy trying to figure out the enigma to try to make small talk.

Bruce gently set the child down on the table before flicking the lights on. Normally he wouldn't bother with lighting his way back to his bedroom but he would need some light to see the child to treat it.

"I am a doctor, so I can look at your arm and fix it for you," Bruce said as he grabbed his bag from by the door and returned to the table.

"What's a doctor?" the child asked, still wrapped up in the blanket.

"A doctor is someone who heals people when they are hurt and make sure they don't get sick. I look after the people around here when they are ill as they cannot afford to go to the hospitals were lots of doctors are," Bruce explained.

"Oh," the child sat silently as Bruce unpacked his bag of things he may need.

"I'm going to need to see your arms if I am to check them for breaks," Bruce pointed out.

The child seemed to deliberate for a second before it slowly uncurled and dropped its grip on the blanket. Now that the pair were in decent light Bruce could finally see in detail the child he had found. For starters the blanket it had been wrapped in was obviously well worn and well loved, but not ragged in a way that would suggest the child had been living rough. The pale blue colouring and soft material looked more suited to a western design than something bought by a local in India.

The boy, as Bruce could now determine for certain, had very pale skin that went well with his rather large striking green eyes and delicate features. A harsh lightning bolt scar marred his forehead and looked rather unsightly, and the boy ruffled his fringe so that it was hidden when he saw Bruce looking. He was dressed in a wet and muddy shirt that was at least four sizes too big for him, and jogging bottoms that were again too large. His feet were only clad in socks that were the most dirty and wet of all his clothing, as if he had been walking through puddles and had fallen over. Overall the boy's state could be explained by him clumsily falling in a puddle, but Bruce knew for a fact there were no puddles around as it was still the dry season and they hadn't had rain for over two weeks.

What was most surprising was that the boy held a bag of bread in his right hand, and looked determined to keep hold of it. Bruce had never heard of 'Warburton's' company before, but he knew for a fact it was not located nor shipped to anywhere in India. Deciding to leave that puzzle alone for now, along with many more, Bruce focussed on the medical puzzle in front of him.

"So, where does it hurt?" Bruce asked in a friendly tone.

In reply the child hesitantly extended his right arm for Bruce to see. It was immediately obvious that there was some internal injury by the swelling of the wrist and how the skin was warmer to the touch than the boy's shoulder had been. Bruce noted the large number of splinters embedded in the boy's left hand too and decided to deal with them once he had splinted the arm.

"So, I wouldn't mind knowing your name," Bruce asked as he nudged his glasses up his nose and started to carefully pull the splinters out of the boy's palm.

"I think it is Harry, that's what Aunt Petunia said it's what I should go by at school," the boy said in an unsure tone.

"What did your parents call you?" Bruce asked.

"I don't know, they died so my aunt and uncle have me," he replied quietly.

"I'm sorry, so what do they call you?" Bruce winced at his blunder.

"Boy, or freak if I have been bad," the boy replied honestly.

"Well I want you to have a proper name that I can call you, do you want that to be Harry? Or we can give you a new name for the two of us to use?" Bruce asked, trying to make it a game and trying to avoid getting angry at having to have this kind of conversation.

"I want a new name! It can be our secret," the boy smiled happily at the thought of a game.

"Well how about John, Jake, Sam, Tom…" Bruce spent the next ten minutes rattling off names whilst he used the distraction to dig splinters out of the boy's hand before wrapping a bandage around it and splinting the broken wrist.

"What about Mateo? It means God's Gift I think, and you are a gift to me," Bruce said.

"I finally have a friend, even if it is just in a dream, so I like it," Mateo smiled and looked at his hand. Bruce's smile remained unobserved by the child.

"So Mateo, when you are with me you are to forget everything that your relatives have told you to do. You are to just be Mateo, a happy child who can do anything he wants to. Okay?" Bruce said and waited for the boy to smile.

Mateo looked almost disbelievingly up at him, but when he didn't seem to find any hint of deception or malice his face shifted into a tiny smile of happiness. The child nodded and seemed to relax a bit more, although Bruce hadn't realised how tense the boy had still been.

"Now, are you hungry at all? You already have bread with you but if you want I have some fruit or some rice and vegetables. I only have tea to drink though but I can get you some water," Bruce had noticed how thin the child looked so he was determined to feed him up.

"Can I have some fruit please? And water is fine," Mateo asked shyly.

Bruce and Mateo then spent the next half an hour happily chatting mostly about inane topics whilst the adult slipped in questions about Mateo's home life. Eventually the boy started to fight to keep his eyes open, which Bruce chuckled at. He managed to coax the child out of his still damp clothes and into one of his spare shirts before tucking him in his own bed. Mateo seemed very reluctant to fall asleep and 'wake-up' without his friend, and only a promise that Bruce would visit him again got the child to settle. Once the child was definitely asleep Bruce sighed and hung his clothes up before taking a seat on one of the wooden chairs and propped his head up on his hands and thought.

The child was a complete enigma, there was no way an English child could magically appear on the streets of India unless he had been travelling with relatives and got lost. However the child was treating the entire event like a dream and didn't even seem to know where he was, nor care about it.

What was even more worrying was the signs of abuse on the child, such as the amount of splinters that had been buried in the boy's palm from his uncle's forceful shove, and the carelessly trodden on limb. Added to that was the mix of fresh and slowly fading bruises across every limb, not to mention suspicious linear marks on his back that matched perfectly those dealt by a belt being swung with force. Bruce knew exactly what marks a beating left from his experience with his own father, and to see such marks again on such an innocent child almost had the Other Guy making a visit. If the child had been abandoned by relatives who beat him then he was better off without them.

The main problem was what Bruce was going to do with the child. Mateo obviously had trust issues that were quite understandable given his family's behaviour towards him. As much as he wanted to shelter the child himself Bruce could not risk keeping him and him getting hurt when the Other Guy made an appearance. Bruce had been extremely careful and had avoided an incident for almost six months, but at some point he would fail and he would have to flee again. Dragging a child along with him as he travelled hundreds of miles would not be fair on the boy, and he would slow him down. There was always the chance of being discovered, and even Bruce couldn't guess what Ross would do to the child. Mateo may only be guilty by association but Ross had not shown one shred of mercy in the past when he had cornered Bruce in Harlem, so a small child would unlikely be let free.

Bruce shook his head, keeping the child with him was too risky.

The only other option was to give him over to the authorities, but that could result in the child being given to a family that did not care for him and merely paid for the privilege of having a white child. It was possibly a ludicrous notion but Bruce had seen the worst of some countries and he really couldn't rule it out. Other than that Mateo could end up in a poor family that could not look after him as well as he needed, he could end up on the streets again, or could be abducted by more nefarious people.

Bruce already felt a connection to the small neglected boy, and as much as he worried over the consequences he knew that he could not give him away in a strange country. Although the danger he posed to the child weighed heavily on his conscience, keeping Mateo close by felt rested lightest on his soul than any of the other possibilities and what-if scenarios.

It still left the problem of the Other Guy threatening Mateo, but Bruce had been controlling his wilder half a lot better recently. And perhaps the right incentive would help to force him to work harder to establish control. As hopeful as Bruce was that that could be the case, he still fell asleep with hundreds of misgivings about his plan rattling around in his head.


	3. Chapter 3 - Decisions

Chapter Three – Decisions

Harry woke up and was immediately confused with his surroundings. He was curled under a thin blanket but was a lot warmer than he should be. He was also lying on a lumpy but still quite comfy mattress, in an unfamiliar room too. The room was as big as Dudley's and had a window with curtains, while two doors lead off from it. The air was warm and slightly sticky, like the air in the bathroom was occasionally when he used it after Dudley had been given a long warm bath. He carefully shuffled to the side of the mattress to go look through the doors when the pain in his wrist caught his attention. Seeing the bound limb brought back all the memories that he thought had been a dream, and Harry gasped in amazement. He had fallen asleep in the shed, and had woken up in a street and was taken home by a nice man… How did that happen?

He honestly thought it had been a dream, he had felt warm and safe for the first time in years. The Nice Man had given him food, had cleaned his cuts, pulled out the splinters from his hands, and let him sleep in a _bed_! He couldn't remember much of the man, apart from he had dark slightly curly hair, and despite his tiredness he had been kind and put Harry's needs ahead of his own need to sleep. What he also remembered was the kind look in his eyes and a warm smile that was actually directed at him. Harry had no idea how he got here, but he sincerely hoped it was real, and that he wasn't going back to the Dursleys.

A rattle of dishes filtered through one doorway and he tiptoed to it and tried to quietly open it to see the man who had helped him. However the hinges squeaked loudly in protest of being moved, and the sound of clattering dishes was replaced with footsteps.

"Sorry Mateo, did I wake you?" the man asked as his head appeared around the door.

"You're real! That wasn't a dream?" Mateo asked in confusion.

"I'm as real as you are, do you want to check?" he offered as he knelt down and reached out a hand.

Mateo suspiciously poked the arm and then spent a few minutes running his right hand over the rough shirt and shyly up Bruce's cheek into his hair. The details that he remembered of the man were true, from the slightly curly hair to the warm smile that graced his face.

But what he hadn't noticed was how the man already had a few grey flecks in his hair even though he didn't seem to look that old to the boy, he didn't have many wrinkles anyway. He also still looked tired and Mateo wondered if that was a permanent look for him, either he never got enough sleep or he had a lot of bad dreams. Finally what Mateo noticed then that he really should have clocked before was how warm and gentle the man's chocolate brown eyes were. They didn't hold any kind of judgemental look in them as the man looked at Mateo and the boy was delighted that he wasn't going to be told off for staring so long at an adult's face.

"You are real," Mateo declared.

"I told you," Bruce smiled and stood straight. "I'm glad you're awake already, I was going to come and wake you soon anyway. I have to go visit patients soon as some of them are quite ill, but I need to ask you something first."

"Yes sir?" Mateo said.

"Oh, my name is Bruce, I forgot to tell you that last night didn't I?" Bruce said quickly. "Anyway, I am not very rich as you can see, and I travel around a lot as there are people after me who wouldn't hesitate to kill me if they found me. I might not be able to provide a brilliant home for you, but you are welcome to stay with me if you want. It won't be easy as I have a problem where if I get too angry I can get very violent, so if you were to stay with me then you must be careful if I get angry. I will completely understand if you do not want to stay with me and then I can take you to the police and they can find you a new home, or perhaps they will be able to get you home."

Bruce waited with baited breath for the child to make a decision. He didn't feel that he could practically kidnap the child without warning him of the lifestyle he was signing up for, but he still hoped that the child didn't want to go to the police. His garbled explanation and offer had been pretty pathetic but he hoped the explanation meant that the child made an informed decision before he threw his lot in with Bruce.

"I don't want to be a burden like my aunt and uncle called me, I can cook and clean for you if you want. And I don't eat much and I have my clothes which I can grow in to," Mateo said quickly, desperate to be able to stay with Bruce. "Can I stay?"

"You can certainly stay with me if you want. I can easily pay for clothes and food for us both but I wanted to make sure you knew that we could be moving around lot, and I might not be able to buy you many presents this Christmas," Bruce explained.

"That's okay, I never get presents anyway," Mateo said flippantly.

"Never?" Bruce was not surprised by this, but it still was shocking to hear.

"Well, I got socks last year I think," Mateo scrunched his face up while thinking.

"That is something we will have to change," Bruce muttered under his breath before addressing Mateo. "I need to leave in a few minutes, do you think you can manage a quick breakfast and to get changed?"

"Yes sir," Mateo nodded energetically, excited at the thought of breakfast.

"You do not need to call me sir, my name is Bruce," the man sighed, "I have made some porridge and I'll cut you up a banana too."

Bruce carefully watched the child as he ate his breakfast messily. It was painfully obvious that the child had very little instruction as to how to eat properly with cutlery as he held the spoon very clumsily and loaded too much food onto it each time. The fact that he wolfed it down as quickly as possible suggested that he was used to having his food stolen, or the time allotted for eating being very a very short window. Bruce sighed, and held back a wince as the boy flinched at the sound, and decided to address the problem.

"Mateo?" he said gently and waited for the boy to look at him. "Seeing as you are going to be living with me I wanted to talk to you about a few things I was thinking about."

Bruce waited for the child to nod before he carried on. "I'm not sure what rules you had to live by before, and now you are living with me you can forget all of them. As Mateo you only have to worry about being polite and happy. I'm going to make sure you have three meals a day so you are healthy, and I will help you get used to the cutlery. I'll help you with your lessons so that you keep up with your learning, and if you ever have a question then do not hesitate to ask. Just remember to be polite, if I am busy then remember it and as soon as I can I will answer you okay?"

"But I need to earn my keep, food and clothing and school are expensive," Mateo said worriedly.

"I am going to be looking after you, and so you do not need to worry about the price of things. You are six, you cannot work and should not be forced to," Bruce said firmly. Mateo looked unconvinced but did not speak further, if he was sure that it wouldn't gain a negative reaction Bruce would have explained the illegality of making a child work.

Ten minutes later Bruce and Mateo stepped out of their house and the adult led them down the street in the direction of his first patient. It only took him a few minutes to realise that the pace he was used to was going to be way too fast for the tiny six year old, and that he was going to be late to every appointment at this rate. Mateo hadn't said a word in protest and Bruce could see the determined look on the child's face as he gamely tried to keep up with Bruce's long stride. There was no denying it though that he was practically having to run to keep up, his small size showing even more at that moment.

After a quick bit of calculating Bruce scooped up the boy, who yelped in surprise, and carefully set him on his shoulders. Another boon of having the Other Guy was that Bruce was much stronger than he looked so carrying a very light child on his shoulders was nothing to him. As Bruce had already calculated though, Mateo was incredibly underweight and stunted in growth for a child of six. So whilst Mateo got used to his new location Bruce silently vowed to himself to undo any negative impacts the neglect had had on the child's body.

"Comfy up there?" Bruce asked as he strode along.

"I am fine, are you okay carrying me?" Mateo asked anxiously.

"You are as light as a feather so carrying you is no problem," Bruce smiled and patted Mateo's left leg as he held onto it.

"Bruce?" Mateo said hesitantly.

"Yes Mateo, what is it?" Bruce replied in a kind voice, encouraging the child to continue.

"Where exactly are we? I don't recognise anything here."

"We are in India, in the city of Kochi to be precise. The language they speak here is called Malayalam, and their writing is very different to English too," Bruce explained.

"I thought it look a lot different to what we used at home," Mateo said.

"Have you started to learn to read yet?" Bruce asked.

"A little, I could read better than Dudley but Aunt Petunia told me off for showing off," Mateo confided unhappily, and Bruce had to make sure he didn't audibly react to the revelation. What kind of a person would be selfish enough to stunt a child's learning just because their own offspring was less intelligent?

"Well with me you don't have to hide how good you really are. If you want I can teach you lots of other languages too," Bruce offered, knowing that children could quickly pick up anything taught to them if they were suitably motivated. He hoped that the offer would be enough to distract the child from his obviously less than pleasant thoughts of home.

"Yes please!" Mateo said enthusiastically.

"Then we shall start tonight, I'm afraid that we might be a bit busy during the day for me to teach you much. Although perhaps we can do some basic words as we walk," Bruce suggested as he thought of the idea.

At Mateo's insistence they did indeed start right away, and the journey passed quite quickly as Bruce pointed out objects and named them in both English and Malayalam. By the time they had reached Adesh's house Bruce had covered quite a few mundane street objects and Mateo was happily trying to remember and recite them as they went. At the door of Adesh's garden Bruce scooped the boy from his shoulders and set him at his side.

"When we get inside can you follow me and not wander off? Whenever I treat a patient I try to be respectful of their home and their space, okay?" Bruce said to Mateo as he knelt so they were at the same eye level.

"I'll keep quiet and stay out of the way, just don't forget me please," Mateo said nervously.

"I won't, and if you are worried then I do not mind you grabbing my hand. Just please don't do that if I am trying to treat a patient," Bruce said gently.

"Okay," Mateo smiled slightly as Bruce rang the bell.

" **Good morning Aishwarya, how are you all today?"** Bruce said as the door opened.

" **We are well, Adesh slept quite peacefully last night,"** the woman replied happily before she spotted the small child standing behind Bruce. **"And who is this?"**

" **His name is Mateo, I found him last night and he doesn't seem to have a family,"** Bruce answered rather honestly.

" **How did he get here, he is not from around here,"** Aishwarya said in confusion.

" **I honestly have no idea, and neither does he, but I have decided to take him in,"** Bruce said.

" **He looks a bit like you, I'm sure you can pass him off as your son,"** Aishwarya gestured them inside.

Mateo's gaze darted around their surroundings as they walked through the walled garden and into a tastefully furnished living room before heading up the stairs to a large bedroom. There was evidence of children in the house in the form of toys tucked out of the way, and a few drawings left on the table. But the house was most notably dominated by the feeling of restrained wealth from the fine quality of the fabric furnishings and expensive looking decorations. Mateo knew well the importance of shiny trinkets, and how angry people could be if you accidentally broke one whilst dusting.

The three arrived in the dark room and the woman left them there. Mateo quickly and quietly went and sat next to the curtains where he could see everything going on without being in the way. He felt a rush of happiness when Bruce smiled and nodded approvingly at him before the man turned to his patient.

Mateo wasn't a fan of being left in the dark as the adults conversed, he had become reliant on listening in on conversations to know exactly how his aunt and uncle were feeling and whether he should try to avoid them. The language barrier meant that Mateo was in the dark about what was going on, and could only know what was going on from the tone of the voices. He felt relatively confident that Bruce wouldn't do anything to hurt him though, so he was able to relax a bit. The man had said that he would look after him, that he didn't have to earn his keep and that he would be taught anything he wanted.

Mateo had no idea why he was trusting the man he hadn't even known for a day, he didn't even trust his teachers and he had known them for a year. He thought he could trust Miss Jakes, his teacher that year, and had told her about Uncle Vernon hitting him. She had believed his aunt and uncle over him though, and he still bore the scars on his back from his uncle's angry beating once the school believed there was no abuse going on.

So he learnt that the only person he could trust was himself, and yet he was waiting patiently for the man that he had already put a large amount of trust on. He was still a bit cautious and wary, but there was just something about the man that had Mateo relaxing and let him let the man care for him. It was an incredibly odd sensation for him to have, he couldn't remember feeling so safe and cared for before.

" **How are you today Adesh?"** Bruce asked quietly as he checked the pulse of the prostrate man, unaware of the tumble of thoughts going on in the child's head across the room.

" **Better I think. My head does not feel as fuzzy as it did,"** Adesh replied groggily.

" **I am certain you will be up again in the next few days,"** Bruce checked the elderly man's heart and lungs. **"Your lung and heart sound good, don't over work yourself and you shall be as good as before."**

" **Your language skills are improving,"** Adesh noted.

" **I have been practicing, and I have extra practice now,"** Bruce smiled over at his small charge again.

" **So what are your orders?"** Adesh said with a chuckle that dissolved into a harsh cough.

" **Continue to rest, I shall check in tomorrow but I think you are fine to slowly get back on your feet. Plenty of fruit juice and a light meal for dinner will help, if you feel up to it then I am sure a gentle walk to the living room wouldn't hurt,"** Bruce shook the man's hand goodbye and waved for Mateo to follow him.

"What was wrong with him?" Mateo asked as they quietly went back down the stairs.

"Just a bout of the flu, but it hit him a bit harder than most. Adesh has been good to the locals, so it is good that he is getting back on his feet again," Bruce explained before he placed a hand on Mateo's shoulder to halt him.

" **He will be fine, I suggest plenty of fresh fruit and rest. I would suggest some fresh air and herbal tea would also be good, but if he is careful then I think he can start getting up again this evening,"** Bruce said as Aishwarya appeared around the corner.

" **Thank you for helping him, here is your payment,"** the lady handed over a couple of bills and a paper bag.

" **What is this?"** Bruce asked as the bag was pushed into his hands.

" **Lakshman has outgrown of them and I think that they should fit Mateo better than his current clothing,"** she smiled at the boy who was hiding behind Bruce.

" **Then I cannot accept payment as well, as I would spend at least this amount on clothing,"** Bruce tried to give the money back.

" **Nonsense, we were getting rid of them anyway,"** Aishwarya insisted her stare daring him to protest again.

" **Thank you,"** Bruce bowed slightly and followed the lady to the door.

He was still learning the intricacies of the culture around him but Bruce knew that as an outsider he had no grounds with which to argue with someone of Aishwarya's standing. And as much as he didn't like feeling like a charity case her argument was completely valid, the clothes would just go to another needing family if Bruce didn't take them. And it wasn't like they didn't need them, it would save him having to worry about taking on more patients or charging more to ensure he could pay the bills and provide for the child.

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Bruce had Mateo change out of his old clothes as soon as possible and then threw them away. With his new clothing that was only marginally too large Mateo looked much happier as he smoothed the light blue fabric of his shirt down and stroked the dark brown trousers he wore. It didn't exactly match the dress style of the locals, but he stood out less than before in his western clothing. They were also of a softer finish than his joggers and shirt, which would no doubt be kinder on the number of welts and scars on his back.

For the rest of the day the pair travelled to the patients that Bruce had appointments with, and at a number of houses they gained more clothing or gifts for Mateo. By the evening Bruce had resorted to buying a shoulder satchel to carry the clothes in whilst Mateo continued to ride on his shoulders, with Bruce's important medical bag held in the man's right hand. Those that knew the doctor and saw him passing in the street were surprised by the appearance of a white child with him but they hid the amused smiles at seeing the man looking rather like a laden packhorse. However they didn't miss the look of happiness and contentment on the man's face as he talked patiently with the child on his shoulders.

Mateo did as he promised and sat out of the way at each house and watched carefully as Bruce treated each patient. From strenuous pregnancies to a very badly broken leg to an asthma sufferer Mateo patiently sat until Bruce motioned for them to be leaving. The journey between houses was filled with Bruce teaching Mateo words or answering his questions about the medicinal practices he followed. It seemed that the boy was a sponge and eagerly soaked up any information he was presented with.

During the hour that Bruce had left open the pair could be found buying some pastries from a small bakery as a treat, then Bruce allowed Mateo to stay and watch the woman make bread and he snuck across the road to buy a couple of items from the market.

By the time the evening rolled around Mateo was practically falling asleep in his portion of the remaining biryani while Bruce was hiding a smile.

"Come on scamp, bedtime," Bruce nudged him towards the bathroom.

"Where do you want me to sleep? I can't have your bed," Mateo yawned.

"You are pretty small, and that mattress is rather generous. Would you object to us sharing for a few nights until I can source us another one?" Bruce asked.

"If you don't mind," Mateo said, secretly happy with the arrangement.

So ten minutes later the pair were curled up in their pyjamas and with their teeth freshly brushed (Mateo had been very happy with his new bathroom stuff Bruce had bought him) in their separate blankets. Mateo was quickly asleep but Bruce lay awake for an hour or so after they lay down worrying over the danger he could pose to the sweet child he was quickly becoming increasingly protective of and attached to.

He couldn't have denied, even if he had wanted to, the unexpected feeling of happiness and pride he had had that day every time Mateo recalled a word of Malayalam or a medical term. Bruce had never expected to have a child, it just was too dangerous with the Other Guy always there threatening to make an appearance. However the child that had practically fallen into his lap seemed to have already broken through his self-built walls and had wormed into his heart. Bruce looked down at the child that had curled into an absolutely tiny ball of blanket and pillow and smiled affectionately before falling asleep with an odd felling of content in his heart.

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Bruce sat bolt upright and gasped as he wrenched himself out of his nightmare with practiced ease. It was a common occurrence for the scientist to awaken from horrendous dreams usually filled with green anger and terrified screams. If not that then they could be of dark rooms and being restrained whilst others inflicted incredible pain. Tonight the nightmare had been of the former kind, but the details had Bruce even more shaken than usual. Normally those he had hurt in his dreams were a blur of indistinguishable details, but tonight he had been terrified to see clearly the slack features of the tiny Mateo lying broken and motionless at his feet.

He sighed deeply and swept a shaking hand over his face, wiping away the perspiration that had gathered there. Next to him the boy that had caused all his worries over the last twenty four hours slept peacefully, thankfully undisturbed by Bruce's movements. Bruce reflexively checked the child and was glad to see the faint pulse in the boy's neck and the gentle movement of the blanket as he breathed.

' _Can I really do this to him?'_ Bruce thought to himself as he looked down at the innocent child.

It would be unfair to let the child get attached only to scare him the moment the Other Guy broke free. Where would the child be then? He already seemed to have some trust issues, and to wreck what trust he had placed in Bruce through a careless mistake could be the final straw for the child. But would it be better to take the child to the authorities when he already seemed to be reasonably settled with Bruce even after only a day? He didn't know what would happen to the child if he followed that course of action, although an orphanage and adoption would likely be the end result. But would the family that adopted him really love him for who he was rather than the interest of having a white child?

As selfish as it was Bruce didn't want to lost the child, it had been nice to have another person around the place to talk to who didn't expect more from him than love and company. And it had been different to have someone to care for beyond the professional interactions he had as a doctor concerned for his patients.

But what about the Other Guy? Just like Harlem he had the potential to ruin everything Bruce was striving to achieve.

' _I shall just have to try even harder to gain complete control and to not let him out,'_ Bruce vowed determinedly.

And with that resolution to be the best level-headed father he could be Bruce settled down again for the night. Sleep was a long time coming though, and his thoughts threatened to keep him awake for the entire night. However that changed when Mateo rolled over and bumped into him. The child was still deeply asleep but he unconsciously seemed to take comfort from the contact with Bruce and wriggled closer like a puppy. He couldn't help it, the child acted like a balm to his nerves and Bruce ended up thinking about what he could teach the child and the more neutral topic helped him drift off once more.


	4. Chapter 4 - Hullabaloo at Home

**A/N: Wow, I am amazed at how many people have followed/favourited this story already, and thanks to everyone who reviewed too! It really does encourage me to see that people are enjoying this story, although it makes me worry if I can keep the quality of work up to please you all!**

 **As promised a Friday update, I have enough material that I could update twice a week if people prefer? Currently at chapter 50 so y'know, plenty to work with!**

 **And a final quick piece, I have considered potentially trying out being a proper author so I would really appreciate creative/helpful criticism. Is my sentence structure good? Is my command of conversations strong enough? Does it get too bogged down at times or perhaps do I skip over details too much? Seriously, anything you spot that could I could improve please** _ **politely**_ **mention it in a review. Thanks!**

 **Chapter Four – Hullabaloo at Home**

Mrs Figg was becoming increasingly worried about the Potter boy. She hadn't seen him for a few days, and even when she had seen him before he wasn't looking healthy. The enormous clothes may not have helped, but he certainly didn't look like a child that was starting to become excited about Christmas. If anything he seemed to be indifferent or even dreading the day.

The Dursley's own son, Dudley, seemed positively ecstatic about the day though. Every time Arabella saw the rather rotund child he was without fail talking about a toy he had seen and wanted to put on his list with everything else. Harry on the other hand barely said a word and had never so much as hinted at anything he wanted.

It could have just been how the child was but Mrs Figg had known of James and Lily, even if they hadn't been overly close. And to Arabella it seemed that Harry's behaviour was nothing like his parents which concerned the squib. Now that the boy had been absent for a couple of days Arabella decided to send a message to Dumbledore.

She had been sent to live in this rather drab and orderly Muggle neighbourhood to watch over the child, and although it could be a false alarm she felt better deciding to alert her employer. Arabella absentmindedly thought about how lucky she was that she could access the Floo network, otherwise she would have had many problems with her beloved cats trying to eat an owl.

Albus Dumbledore was slightly surprised by the letter that was spat out of his fireplace onto the worn red rug. Normally all his post came by owl, so this one letter grabbed his attention straight away, so he immediately got up and retrieved it to read its contents. It took him a few lines to recognise the handwriting and to figure out the purpose of the message. It was Christmas Eve and Arabella was worrying that Harry hadn't been out for a few days. If the weather in Surrey was anything like that in Scotland it was probably very reasonable that Harry was staying inside. It hadn't stopped snowing for a week in the north, and while snow as unlikely in London the chance of rain was very real.

But the venerable wizard had placed the squib there for a reason, so he grabbed a thick warm cloak and strode in a quick yet relaxed fashion towards the gates of Hogwarts. There weren't many students in the corridors to observe his passing, but on the off chance he made sure he didn't present any kind of worried air. Once outside the boundaries he disapparated to Privet Drive, and quickly threw up some concealment and notice-me-not charms.

As he had predicted it had been raining quite prolifically over the last few days at least as his boots sank into the sopping grass. There was no hint of snow, nor did there seem to be any chance of a white Christmas, but the temperature was certainly cold enough to make the old wizard glad he had chosen a thick cloak. But despite the lack of frozen precipitation the locals had seemed determined to make the season festive. A few strings of tasteful and reserved fairy lights hung from a few house's guttering, while a few larger bushes were also treated to twinkling lights. There were no gaudy and overblown decorations in this proud neighbourhood, they were much too proud of their appearances to even consider a jolly illuminated Santa on their rooves.

Careful to not make a sound he snuck up the road to the correct house. He had never been a fan of the muggle tendency to build everything the same, in Dumbledore's opinion these houses were much too similar and devoid of character to be considered lived in. But he acquiesced to the Dursley's preferences and nudged his attention back to the matter at hand as he carefully peered into the house through the living room window.

The three Dursleys were sitting down watching the television, and although the parents looked rather stressed and annoyed there was nothing to suggest anything was amiss. Albus could see how pristine the house was kept, perhaps Vernon and Petunia were merely stressed because they were trying to make Christmas perfect, which would probably take a lot of effort with two children in the house. There was a large but tastefully decorated Christmas tree in one corner of the living room, and Christmas cards were dotted along the mantle piece in between photo frames and small knickknacks. A whole pile of presents practically overflowed from under the tree, and a plate of carrots had been left on the coffee table next to the fireplace. Overall it was a quintessential Christmas Eve scene with the three Dursleys. But Albus was concerned by the lack of a solitary Potter in the scene.

Despite having charms cast on him to avoid drawing attention to himself, Albus was careful when he backed away from the window to survey the house. As he was well within the boundary of the wards Albus decided to carefully check them and see whether everything was functioning perfectly. A few minutes later he was frowning thoughtfully at the results that appeared in front of him. The wards, although still up and functionally strong, were not as strong as they could be and showed signs of having weakened minutely over the last few days.

Albus had cast the necessary spells to erect the wards himself that fateful night five years ago so he knew that there was no possible way a mistake could have led to the wards disintegrating as they were. That left two causes that could have led to this result, the first was that Harry Potter had died, and Albus knew this would be impossible. The second was that the boy was so far away that his physical presence could not be detected and was not renewing the wards. There was a third option that the boy no longer regarded the place as home but Albus doubted that possibility even more than the first option, Harry had only been gone a maximum of two days.

Albus knew that if the second cause was to blame then the boy had to be far from the house for the wards to start weakening as they had. It would have to be more than just a holiday too, magic could detect intent when it came to wards, and if Harry was merely visiting other people the wards would still stand. How this could have happened in the two days that had passed since Arabella had last seen the boy Albus had no idea. He hated the thought that the muggle family could have either let the boy run away, or that a magical person had taken him. The wizard knew that the Dursleys probably hadn't been happy at all with having to take the child in, but the monetary incentive both from himself and the muggle government should have had them grudgingly keeping the child. But that reassurance still didn't explain what had happened.

A quick wave of his wand later and the walls of the house faded from his view until they were merely shadows of their original selves. That particular spell changed the vision of the wizard so that he could gaze without restriction throughout the house. Although technically he was conducting some serious privacy faux pas he was able to check for certain whether the boy was on the property or not. After thoroughly looking at every inch of the house it seemed that Arabella's worries were well founded; the boy definitely was nowhere to be seen. Seeing no other way to discover the truth Albus dropped all the charms he had cast on himself and stepped up to the door and rapped the knocker sharply.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Vernon Dursley snapped as soon as he opened the door. "Don't you realise what time it is?"

"Good evening I am Albus Dumbledore, we haven't met but I wr-"

"Ah yes you were the idiot who dumped our nephew on our doorstep with a letter and no explanation," Vernon cut in.

"I did explain everything in the letter," Albus said.

"No, you did not explain why we had to be lumped with the boy and expose our son to his freakishness. You did not explain why we had to deal with him when one of your own kind would be better suited to deal with his ungrateful behaviour," Vernon snarled.

"Is it this 'ungrateful behaviour' that has made you send him away?" Albus asked, determined to get this conversation over with as soon as possible. Vernon Dursley was a man who would stick to his beliefs and opinions until the world ended and Albus hadn't the time or patience to talk to the stubborn man much longer.

"Sent him away? I wish we had done so. The disrespectful brat threw food all over the kitchen so I locked him in the shed for a few hours to cool his heels," Vernon glossed over the truth.

"Well he isn't there now," Albus pointed out.

"What are you talking about, the door is still locked," Vernon scoffed.

"I assure you he is not there anymore," Albus insisted.

Vernon huffed and stomped through his house to the backdoor, grabbing the keys as he went. Albus quietly followed and the pair was soon staring into the empty shed.

"That boy and his freakish ways, he's done something to get out of here," Vernon wanted to rant and rave at the top of his voice, but his fear of the neighbours overhearing kept his voice to a restrained growl.

"Accidental magic can occur when a child is distressed or angry," Albus said calmingly.

"We swore to make sure he didn't do any of that rubbish under our roof," Vernon hissed.

"To magical people it is impossible to control these bouts. For his own safety I shall set to finding Mr Potter and returning him to you post haste," Albus said and disapparated before Vernon could reply.

"Bloody freaks," Vernon muttered under his breath and stomped inside, in a worse mood than before. He vowed that if that freakish man brought the child back then he wouldn't let them in the house, and if the boy had to live in the garden then so be it.

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Once he was back in his office Albus did what he did best in a time of crisis: he grabbed his bowl of sherbet lemons and started chain eating them whilst pacing the open space in front of the fire. Fawkes raised his head to peer at his oddly behaving friend before tucking his head under his wing again. Albus created then rejected plan after plan until he was just as clueless as to what to do as he had been when he started pacing.

It would be really useful now to be able to do a point-me spell and to just track down the boy, however that spell did not work unless you had a vial of the person's blood. Seeing as owning that would be illegal and could lead to more problems that it would solve Albus hadn't got any DNA belonging to the Potter heir, so that idea was rejected immediately.

Normally accidental magic was limited by the amount of power stored in the body of the caster, and seeing as Harry was only six he should only have been able to teleport himself a mile at the most. But the degradation of the wards showed he had gone well beyond that. As much as it annoyed Dumbledore that the boy had disappeared, he couldn't help but be amazed at the display of power from the untrained child.

Two hours and a bowl of sherbet lemons later, Albus had no solid plan and was irritated beyond belief. He could not alert anyone to the fact that the saviour of the wizarding world was missing without alerting both factions to the problem. So he decided to keep the disappearance quiet and would spend as much spare time as he could scouring the magical population for any hints of the strange appearance of a child.


	5. Chapter 5 - Christmas

**A/N: Thanks again to every reviewer, follower and favouriter I really do appreciate it!**

 **In response to the some reviews – Sorry if Dumbledore seemed a little vague in the last chapter, I've been trying to decide on his motivation. I have finally settled on an idea with him (don't worry there won't be any major Dumbledore bashing or evil!Albus). Things get better explained in the future don't worry!**

 **Also sorry if I start going a bit old fashioned in my writing, it is habit I am trying to kick! I'm blaming my upbringing: my mother instilled in us the importance of speaking correctly, especially in formal situations with new people. I think that has bled through to my writing due to nerves – I want to get this right and for you guys to like it!**

 **Chapter Five – Christmas**

Bruce was almost starting to regret his suggestion four nights ago that the two of them shared a bed, but it was only 'almost' regretting at the moment, not actually. It was extremely early in the morning on Christmas day and he had been awoken by the boy at his side seeming to be in the middle of a violent fit. Bruce was almost up and running for his medical bag before he realised that the boy was not thrashing about as if out of control, but more flailing as if to get away from an unseen attacker. Although the boy seemed to be terrified in his dream, he did not cry out at all, and his mouth remained determinedly shut as he breathed harshly through his nose. Bruce had had his fair share of nightmares before, so he knew exactly what would calm the boy.

"Mateo it's alright, calm down it is just a dream," Bruce murmured and repeated over and over again as he stroked the messy black hair next to him.

After a while of constant murmuring and stroking the boy seemed to calm down and sighed unhappily. His eye's fluttered open for a second and he smiled sleepily at Bruce before catching the man's hand and curling around his arm. Bruce tried to gently wriggle his arm out from the child's grip but he quickly gave up the attempt as a lost cause. He had never heard how closely children could mimic limpets when they wanted to, even in their sleep. It was slightly disconcerting to him as Bruce had never been much of a fan of physical contact unless it was needed, but the way Mateo clung to his arm like a lifeline had him stopping his efforts to shake him off.

With Mateo once again settled and holding his limb hostage Bruce sighed and curled up on the mattress again, with Mateo safely encircled by Bruce's larger body. The boy mumbled something unintelligible and wriggled backwards until his back was flush with Bruce's chest and then lay still. Bruce couldn't fail to see the similarities between the two of them: both seemed to have very bad nightmares and the comfort they could gain from the other was enough to fend the shadows off. He had never really believed in fate or the will of deities but Bruce ended up dropping off to sleep once more whilst mulling over what he could possibly have done to deserve such a gift as the child that seemed to trust him so readily.

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Mateo was slightly confused when he woke up, it was a feeling he was getting rather used to thanks to the last few days. Today he was trying to understand why he felt so warm and secure as he surfaced from his sleep. When he opened his eyes he realised why. First off he was hugging an arm that was much too large to be his, and it took him a few seconds to remember that he was in India with Bruce. Secondly he noticed the warmth created by Bruce being curled around him protectively.

To the boy, who had never had a hug from any of his relatives since he had lived with them, seeing the man willingly allow Mateo to steal his arm and then curl up with him had him grinning from ear to ear. Bruce hadn't had any more physical contact with him than holding his hand or carrying him on his shoulders. Mateo had been terrified that the man had figured out he was a freak and hadn't wanted to touch him more than he had to. But here he was huddled around Mateo in a protective cocoon with no hint of displeasure on his sleeping features.

Bruce still looked rather tired as he had been working extra hard to ensure he could have the day off today, so Mateo let him sleep. However the pressure in his bladder urged him to wriggle out of the light grip of the arms encircling him and he padded silently to the bathroom.

He had never liked how boringly plain the Dursley house had been, and whilst the house he was living in now was rather bare he liked the colouration much more. The living room was a pale yellow, the bathroom was a rich green, and their bedroom was a burnt sunset orange. The kitchen was a washed out version of the bedroom, but little of the walls remained bare to really notice the paintwork. The house had only come with built in cupboards in the bedroom and the kitchen, but Bruce had worked hard to try and make the place more normal since Mateo had appeared.

Bruce had been slowly teaching him how to tell the time, and when Mateo reappeared from the bathroom he checked the watch on Bruce's wrist. Although he couldn't tell the time accurately knew it was still early as the little hand was pointing at the six. Although they had been up before now over the last few days Mateo wanted the man to sleep well. The man had been so patient with him that Mateo thought he deserved to sleep in at least. After a while Mateo also thought he could make a small gesture of his appreciation, so he quietly pottered into the kitchen to see whether he could go about making breakfast. The pair had been to the local supermarket the day before and to celebrate today Bruce had bought some extra supplies for their meal. As he had helped put the shopping away Mateo knew where to find the ingredients he wanted.

As Bruce had said he was a vegetarian when he had the option Mateo couldn't make a cooked breakfast like he was good at doing. He had learnt many skills in his stint as cook for the Dursleys though, so he planned something a little different to a fry up. This morning he carefully wiped down the kitchen counter, whilst standing gingerly on a chair, before spreading flour out and making bread like the lady in the bakery had done.

Although he hadn't been able to ask questions Mateo had managed to figure out what the woman was doing and now mimicked her. He soon had a small mound of flour with the yeast mixed in and a small dip in the middle to pour the water into before he carefully mixed it all together. Luckily the oven was electric so Mateo was able to figure it out and proved the bread before separating it into two rolls and putting them into the oven to cook.

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Bruce came to slowly, happy to not have to get up any time soon. He stretched his arms and was surprised when his left arm could move freely. Bruce cracked an eye open and couldn't make out a small body on the bed. Normally Mateo was a tight ball wrapped in his blue blanket, but his blanket laid rumpled and empty. A quick visual check told the man that the door to the bathroom shut was open so the child wasn't in there either.

That was when he noticed that the air smelt of baking bread. He quickly scrabbled to his feet and left his own brown blanket on the mattress. Habit had him throwing the first set of clothes he found on, which ended up with him wearing brown trousers and a dark blue polo shirt. Once presentable Bruce padded into the kitchen and was met with the sight of Mateo sitting cross legged in front of the oven staring intently into it. The boy was concentrating so much that he didn't seem to have noticed Bruce's approach. Bruce frowned at that, usually the boy paid a bit too much attention to his surroundings and would have heard Bruce leaving the bed.

"So what's on the menu, Gordon Ramsay?" Bruce asked after deciding that today was not the day for sad thoughts.

Mateo jumped up and seemed slightly scared of Bruce at that moment. Bruce sighed, once again cursing the mental damage Mateo's relatives had inflicted upon him. However he didn't mention it and instead knelt down to his level. "It's okay I wasn't angry at you, I'm just surprised to find you up and cooking is all."

"I thought I would make bread for breakfast," Mateo mumbled.

"That sounds like a lovely idea, what are we going to have with it? I can prepare that for you while you watch the bread," Bruce said gently.

"Mrs Figg, who lived along the road from me, used to tell me about her favourite sandwich being banana and brown sugar, so I thought we could try that," Mateo said hesitantly.

"Sounds like a fun experiment, I shall get to the bananas then."

"I've already put a bit of sugar in the bread so we might only need butter," Mateo said as Bruce started rummaging for ingredients.

Ten minutes later the pair was sat at the table with their breakfast, Mateo grinning happily with butter all round his mouth and Bruce trying not to laugh at the child. The bread was surprisingly good and Bruce was left wondering how much cooking Mateo could really do, and whether that was through natural talent or being forced to. When they had finished Bruce washed up, and while Mateo was getting dressed he snuck into one of the bags and dug out some hidden items to place on the table before he sat with a book and acted oblivious.

Mateo reappeared a few minutes later, face scrubbed pink and in his favourite green shirt and a pair of random trousers, which today where white. Bruce watched out of the corner of his eye as the boy saw the packages on the table and seemed intrigued by them but didn't dare look at them for too long, let alone even come closer to investigate.

The man was still trying to wrap his head around Mateo's aunt and uncle who had seemingly spoilt their own child rotten but had treated Mateo no better than a slave. Bruce may have only had one side of the story but he very much doubted Mateo was lying. Having seen the injuries he arrived with provided suitable evidence to Bruce that the couple were terrible guardians.

It worried Bruce to think what the child could have ended up like. If Mateo had been the family until he reached the legal age then they would have either created the perfect slave, trained to obey their every whim, or would have produced a psychotic murderer.

That trail of thought was not the kind that should be followed on such a cheery day though, so Bruce quickly squashed it and turned his attention back to the room. After a couple of minutes of Mateo sitting on the recently acquired sofa kicking his feet absentmindedly Bruce caved. It was obvious the child wasn't going to move any closer to the table and the parcels so it was up to him as the adult to get the child to open them.

"Are you not going to open your presents then?" he asked as he shut his book.

"I have presents?" Mateo's face was a beautiful mixture of excitement and hope, whilst being slightly marred with suspicion.

"Well who do you think these are for?" Bruce pointed to the ones on the table.

"I thought they might be from your patients to you, or you bought them for yourself," Mateo mumbled.

"They are most certainly for you," Bruce exclaimed and beckoned Mateo over.

The child yelped in surprise as Bruce picked him up and sat him on his knee so that he was a bit higher up and could easily reach the table top. Bruce reached over and grabbed the packages and put them within Mateo's reach.

"Sorry that they aren't more interesting or wrapped in colourful packaging," Bruce said nervously as Mateo gingerly reached for one.

"I don't mind, I've never had a present to open before," Mateo said honestly. "Uncle Vernon only threw the socks at me last year."

Once again Bruce had to force himself to remain calm and relaxed, especially seeing as the child was so close and would undoubtedly pick up on his tensed muscles. However Mateo was more entranced with the meagre pile of presents in front of him to really notice the mental struggle that Bruce was having over his careless words.

The child then seemed to spend ages savouring the process of unwrapping the first couple of presents, and the first one he opened very slowly and carefully to not break the brown paper. By the last one he was gleefully tearing the paper apart like a normal child should. Bruce was immensely enjoying watching Mateo have fun ripping his way into the presents and behaving more like his age rather than being the solemn child like he was most of the time.

Bruce had been a bit limited with what he could buy for Mateo from the one small shop and the market nearby, but he had tried his best. Luckily Mateo seemed over the moon to have received a notebook and many colourful pencils to draw with, all the implements needed for him to learn to write with, a small rucksack of his own, and a thin leather bracelet that matched the one Bruce had been given by one of his first patients.

Mateo seemed to be most enthralled by the small cuddly toy that Bruce had found, a white dog with a black ear and patch around one eye, with a nose made of the same soft black material. Bruce hadn't been sure whether to buy the kid a toy or not in case he lost it and got upset, but seeing Mateo gleefully hugging the dog now he was glad he had. The child confided in him that he had had a toy wolf back home that he had missed a lot, but now he was very happy to have a new toy.

"I'm sorry I didn't get you anything," Mateo mumbled as he realised that fact.

"It's alright, you didn't have any money to buy anything with. And you've only been here four days. But you made bread this morning and planned breakfast which was a lovely surprise," Bruce said in an attempt to pacify the child.

"It's still not good enough," Mateo said unhappily. It was pretty obvious that he had been drilled on the value of such things as toys and gifts, and the importance of earning ones keep.

"Then there is something you could do for me if it would make you happy," Bruce hesitated in speaking his idea.

"What is that?" Mateo asked warily, he had picked up on Bruce's hesitation and was looking at the man carefully.

"Well, if you want to, and you don't have to if you don't want to, then perhaps seeing as you are going to stay with me then perhaps you can consider calling me Dad? You don't have to, but if you want to then I wouldn't tell you off for it, and it would help us appear more like a family to everyone else," Bruce rambled quickly, worried what the boy would think.

"I don't remember my own Daddy, but I think you would be a great Dad for me now," Mateo said and flung his arms around Bruce's neck, the floppy dog toy now squashed between them.

Bruce's face cracked into a huge smile as he returned the hug, happy for once that Christmas was shaping up to be a lovely day. Their lunch and dinner may not have been anything amazingly special but he and Mateo spent the day enjoying each other's company. The adult realised wryly that the day mostly ended up being full of lessons for Mateo but the child didn't seem to mind. In reality it had been Mateo's polite requests that lead to Bruce showing him how to do shading and light sketching with his new pencils. In the evening Bruce taught some of the simpler carols he had sung back in America to the child, as well as a couple of lullabies that he remembered.

Bruce's memories of his own father were less than pleasing, and Mateo hadn't had enough time to cultivate any with his own biological father. That evening, as Mateo leant back against him and allowed Bruce to wrap his arms around him, Bruce decided that he would ensure they both would make happier memories. Today had given him two memories that he was sure he would treasure for many decades to come. First off had been when Mateo had first called him 'Dad' and had given the massive hug.

Secondly was the memory of their evening curled up on the sofa together singing carols and lullabies. Mateo had picked up the melody quickly and even if he didn't remember the words he hummed along in harmony with Bruce's deeper voice. It didn't take much to send Mateo to sleep as he listened to his adoptive father singing a more complicated carol.

Once Bruce realised that Mateo had slipped off to the land of dreams he carefully scooped up the tiny child and carried him to bed, careful to remember to grab the stuffed toy from the sofa on the way.

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Albus Dumbledore sat at the large table and idly played with his food. All the staff were sitting on the same table as the students as their numbers would only fill one house table. Voices intermingled into a pleasant background babble interspersed with laughter and clattering of cutlery on metal plates. Even the majority of the staff were more vocal than usual as they enjoyed the day and the relaxed atmosphere. Severus was as subdued as ever, but no one paid attention to him. However Dumbledore's silence did garner some attention.

The students were having a great time pulling crackers and tucking into the feast in front of them while fake snow fell from the enchanted ceiling. Usually Albus would join in with them and would wear the most ridiculous hat he could find out of the crackers, but this year the lack of his usual joy was noticeable and drew some concerned looks from some staff members.

"Are you alright Albus? You seem rather gloomy today," Minerva McGonagall asked quietly.

"I'm quite well my dear, just a little preoccupied at the moment," Albus said with a smile.

"Anything we can help you with? Is Fudge being a pain again?" Minerva guessed.

"He is a bit, that man needs to learn to stand on his own two feet," Albus grabbed the excuse quickly.

"Well try to forget him for the day, you usually adore Christmas," Minerva pointed out.

"I shall try," Albus nodded and followed her advice, putting his worries of Harry Potter to the back of his mind and joined in with the festivities.

However at the end of the evening, when Albus was once more alone in his office, he couldn't help let his thoughts return to the enigmatic case of the disappearing child.

For the last four days Albus had been surreptitiously checking all the relevant agencies near to the Dursleys for reports of a missing child being brought in. It was easy to obliviate the muggles once he was done questioning them, and not for the first time was he grateful that his actions never garnered attention from the Ministry of Magic.

He was completely befuddled by Harry's actions, true the Dursleys were harsh on him but Albus had counted on that. Any advantage that could help win the war against Voldemort had to be taken, for the greater good.

If the child could not be relocated quickly then Albus was worried that his years of planning would all be for naught. So he vowed to keep looking until Harry was recovered and back safely with the Dursleys.

 **A/N: I hope I do not put anyone off with my interpretation of Albus in this story. I am not intending for him to be an evil person or a dark wizard, it is more a case of acting with the best intentions of the end goal – whatever the costs. But before you stop following I can promise that that is pretty much the end of the serious Dumbledore bashing!**


	6. Chapter 6 - Old Habits Die Hard

**PLEASE READ – Hello everyone, just a quick warning that I will be away next week. My sister and I are going to Wales and even if I could guarantee internet signal to post I'm not taking my laptop. So I will update today (obviously) and tomorrow, then next Sunday. After that normal posting will resume (going for Mondays and Fridays).**

 **As always thank you to everyone who follows/favourites/reviews, it makes the small child in me squeal happily!**

 **Chapter Six – Old Habits Die Hard**

Mateo's progress after Christmas had been quite impressive in Bruce's opinion, the child had taken the change in his stride and was happy to have any kind of attention. Well, he was probably a little _too_ overjoyed whenever Bruce gave him praise or listened patiently to his questions. But there were no worrying negative behaviours that concerned Banner, like insisting on cooking or not expecting to be fed every time Bruce prepared food.

It had taken him a week to fully kick that habit, but it had helped that Mateo had latched onto trying to read like a leech. As a result he was often at the dining room table when Bruce was cooking so he easily set the boy's food in front of him so he saw he had food to eat. Bruce also made a conscious effort to carry fruit in his medical bag as well now so that he could pass it up to Mateo to eat as he walked them to the next patient. Such a move did run the risk of him having food in his hair but Mateo was quite a tidy eater when he needed to be. Probably another effect of being starved at home, while he didn't have much of a clue about how to use cutlery the boy could not be accused of wasting even a crumb.

Mateo's improvements may have helped by giving the child a new name and a new position in life instead of trying to get Harry to change himself. Being able to completely disassociate himself from his old life had let him build a completely new personality free from all his old conscious habits and expectations engrained by the Dursleys. It made Bruce's blood boil to think that such an innocent and loving child had been treated no better than a dog, and that he had come to believe that it was right for him to serve his family.

So, things seemed to be going well and Bruce was almost certain that Mateo had avoided any permanent psychological problems. And then Mateo dropped a cup.

Mateo had been living with him for a month and the child was still getting used to the various tastes in Indian food. That particular evening they had discovered he didn't overly care for the fried banana that Bruce had made as a bit of a frivolous addition to their meal. Mateo had gamely tried it, and continued to chew it after his first bite, but Bruce could tell he didn't enjoy it.

"If you don't like it then I am not going to force you to eat it. I'm not a fan of liver so I know there are foods you won't like," Bruce said gently.

"Sorry I don't like it," Mateo apologised and looked down.

"It really is alright Mateo, fried banana is a bit of a weird dish," Bruce smiled and managed to coax a glimmer of one from the boy. "Go get a drink of juice to wash the taste out of your mouth, I bought something else as well that you might like try."

Bruce wasn't sure if he should really have been as loose with his money as he had been that day in the shop, but he wanted to get Mateo to put weight on. The easiest way he knew to do that was to increase the amount of sugar and calories he was eating, hence the fried bananas and chocolate that was still hidden in his bag. Being largely vegetarian, you could never be too sure how old some meats were in various countries, Bruce knew that their meals were already packed with the protein and vitamins Mateo needed to undo the neglect of his relatives. The child had had virtually no appetite when he had had arrived, so that was also something else that Bruce was still trying to rectify.

His musings were cut short by the sound of a glass smashing in the kitchen. "Are you okay in there Mateo?"

There was no reply, so Bruce quickly pushed his chair away from the table and strode quickly to the kitchen in case there was blood as well as shattered glass.

Meanwhile Mateo was having a bit of a meltdown. How could he be so stupid? He should have gotten a chair rather than trying to scrabble for the glass, and now it was in pieces on the floor and he was going to be beaten for sure. The sounds of the shards scattering had barely ceased when a deep voice called out to him, and he flinched fearfully. He was already panicking too much to register that the voice was full of concern rather than anger.

Heavy footfalls started to approach, and Mateo whimpered as he knew what came next. He knew that there was one way to marginally reduce the punishment he was soon to receive, so Mateo hurriedly stripped his shirt off and placed his hands on the cupboards in front of him and braced for the belt.

Bruce stumbled into the kitchen and froze at the sight in front of him. The sound of smashing he had heard was indeed one of the glasses that had been left on the draining rack. He was not concerned about the loss, but Mateo's reaction was what shocked him. The boy had adopted a posture that spoke of experience of being beaten, his feet were spread and his hands were on the cupboard in front of him to help him take the blow. His favourite green shirt had been carefully folded and placed to the side, safe from damage and blood.

The sight of the slowly healing welts on his back caused bile to rise in Bruce's throat as he realised that Mateo had not made the leaps in advancing away from his past as he had first thought the child had.

"I'm sorry sir, I didn't mean to," Mateo said tonelessly, and Bruce's heart broke.

"Mateo I will never beat you, please put your shirt back on," he said, his voice cracking slightly at the end.

Mateo flinched but stayed where he was.

"I swear to you that I will never punish you like that. Please look at me, son," Bruce begged.

The child did cautiously turn around but kept his eyes fixed on the floor. Bruce gingerly walked around the glass and knelt by the boy and gently nudged his chin up until their eyes locked. "You're my son and I will never hurt you like that for an accident. Even if you had done something horrendous with the purpose of hurting me I would never have considered raising a fist or belt to you. Please don't think that a beating is ever what you deserve, or what you should expect from me."

"Sorry Dad," Mateo eventually whispered, his voice cracked slightly.

"It's okay," Bruce carefully pulled him into a hug and gently stroked the child's shivering head. "Just remember you are my son now, and remember what I expect of you."

"To be a happy and respectful child, to ask questions when I want to, and to eat my food," Mateo recited automatically.

"That's right, so forget any of those old rules you had," Bruce sighed at the boy's repetition of his new 'rules' but let it slide for now. What mattered most was that his son knew that he need not fear this face of his father.

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Bruce watched the child like a hawk for weeks after that event, determined to ensure he didn't have another relapse into his old habits. The worst triggers seemed to occur when the boy was expecting punishment for something, so Bruce ensured that Mateo was constantly reminded that he would not be punished. He may have been rather obsessive at times, but it was necessary he felt.

At times his obsession could have been considered detrimental to his own psyche, but it staved off some negative tendencies he had. Bruce was constantly plagued with the worry that something would go wrong and he would lose it, resulting in the Other Guy appearing. His worst nightmare was that he would come to and find the broken and bloody form of Mateo at his feet. There were numerous times he awoke from that nightmare, and the dread it caused never fully left him during the day.

He had attempted to plan other options that would be better for the child, such as families he trusted or countries that had a good adoption rate that he could leave Mateo in. But as the days went passed and they grew even closer Bruce couldn't bring himself to consider giving the child away. It was selfish of him, and if his nightmare ever became a reality he knew it would crush him, but seeing Mateo smile as he ran ahead along the road or look delighted as he solved another maths equation eased the guilt and loneliness in his soul.

So Bruce learnt to ignore the small voice that whispered in his ear about how he would ruin things, he learnt to contain the Other Guy so that he did not make an appearance, and threw everything he had into ensuring Mateo had the best childhood he could provide. Even in the evenings when quite often all he wanted to do was cook then sleep he pushed away the tiredness and ensured that Mateo was given his daily writing and maths lessons so the child could make more progress.

He also had to learn to stop being shifty every single time a police car rushed towards them with its lights on, only for it to go zooming past without the occupants giving him and Mateo a second glance. Bruce had never stayed in one place for so long, either the appearance of US military men forced him on or the feeling of paranoia did. But so far he had been in Kochi for getting on for over four months and he had yet to start feeling the familiar itch on the back of his neck that often came a week or so before he usually moved on.

In a way he was incredibly frustrated, he couldn't get complacent and stay in one spot forever as that would increase the chances of being found. However he had no drive to uproot their lives and move on for no reason at all beyond his own paranoia. He had heard once, while he still had a normal life in America, that children benefitted from routine and continuity in their lives; and uprooting their lives could be counterproductive to his attempts to help Mateo be normal. So despite the small voice whispering at him that he should run far and fast from here Bruce settled to remaining in the area for a little while yet, at least until there was clear evidence that they had to leave.

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Mateo was quite sure that there had to be some kind of being looking out for him, as his prayers had finally been answered. He at last was living a life that was one he was happy with, with someone who loved him and didn't treat him like dirt. It had been extremely disconcerting to start with knowing that somehow he had managed to get all the way to India, and he was secretly terrified that Bruce might be angry at his freakishness.

He knew the man was smart, much smarter than Uncle Vernon had ever been, so he probably knew there was something wrong with Mateo straight away from him managing to travel so far. However the man also seemed infinitely kinder than Uncle Vernon. He had bought him gifts for Christmas without expecting any back, and he really seemed to want Mateo to be happy. Bruce also seemed to know how to be a better father too, he was making sure Mateo learnt as much as he could of what he wanted rather than just feeding him and telling him to beat up the other kids.

He was terrified of Bruce realising his freakishness ways were permanent and that one day the man who had asked him to call him dad might not want him anymore. So Mateo focussed on being the best child he could possibly be to ensure that Bruce had no reason to get rid of him. He also hoped fervently that no one would find them and take him back to his relatives. Mateo had tried to run away once, he had only gotten to the end of the road before Uncle Vernon caught him. Whilst he was dragging him home again Uncle Vernon had said that there were people who always brought children back to their families when they ran away, and Mateo really didn't want to be found.

And it seemed that the galactic higher being that had helped him escape the Dursleys continued to smile on him, as no one did come for him over the many years.


	7. Chapter 7 - A Walking Timebomb?

**Chapter Seven – A Walking Timebomb?**

Bruce knew that something would go wrong at some point, and he was terrified of the possibility that Mateo would be with him when it happened. The pair had grown even closer, if it was possible, over the last couple of months. Bruce had been surprised that they had ended up staying in the same neighbourhood for longer than he had dared before. He was used to moving on after a few months at the most, so it was rather an odd sensation for him to actually form quite good relationships with his neighbours and patients. He had tried to keep a respectful and professional distance from most people but somehow the addition of Mateo had pretty much led to him being cornered by many people wanting to meet the child.

Mateo was learning Malayalam quickly and was now able to talk with some of the neighbours kids when they met on the street. Bruce was greatly surprised by how Mateo was developing and that he would politely talk to strangers, but only if Bruce was within eyesight. His confidence was markedly greater if he was standing within arm's reach of his father figure, but Bruce assumed that was probably a general child trait.

Bruce had offered to enrol Mateo in the local school if he wished, but the boy had been adamant that he carried on accompanying Bruce to visit patients so that he could learn as much medical skills as possible. He wasn't sure whether the child's interests were born from a wish to be able to fix himself if he was ever injured in the future, or whether it was true interest in the subject. Bruce hoped it was the latter, as the former option would mean Mateo still didn't think Bruce would reliably be around or care enough to comfort him when hurt.

So the pair had fallen into a comfortable routine of rising early and heading out to treat patients. Mateo may have been growing quickly but he was still unable to keep up with Bruce so he sat on top of the man's shoulders.

It was on an occasion when they were travelling back along the main road, from a man who had had a particularly nasty accident with a saw, when the incident occurred. An expensive looking car came speeding around the corner and almost ploughed straight into them. Bruce was able to jump out of the way in time and the car screeched to a halt soon after.

Bruce was hoping that it was someone coming to apologise but as soon as a man stepped out from the back of the car Bruce realised that that was not going to happen. Carefully he set Mateo down on the floor behind him and passed over the bag.

"Mateo there are likely to be some angry and rude words said now, and I might change. If you start to get scared then I want you to run home and wait for me there, okay?" Bruce asked before turning and staring at the man approaching. Mateo was good at picking up moods and so he had no worries of Mateo not understanding the severity of the situation.

" **What do you think you are doing?"** the man shouted as soon as he got within ten metres of Bruce.

" **I am walking home with my son, what do you think you are doing almost running us over?"** Bruce retorted.

For a second the man seemed surprised that a westerner spoke the language, but he composed himself. **"This is a road, if you are idiotic enough to walk on it then you deserve to be run over."**

" **Well it would be hard to walk in the air, I doubt even you could do that."**

The American knew that this was a bad idea, the locals were tolerant of tourists but Bruce had heard of arguments getting out of hand. He should back down, but the man had almost killed him and his son and right now he did not want to meekly shuffle off. For the first time in many months he let the anger build, along with the roaring in his head of the Other Guy straining to get free. He got the odd sense that the reason that the Other Guy was angry was mostly because of the danger that Mateo had been exposed to, rather than to his own life. But before Bruce could think more on this the other man replied.

" **How dare you, who do you think you are?"** the man spluttered.

" **He is my daddy, and he is only worried that you almost hurt me. I think that he has a right to be angry,"** a small voice piped up from behind Bruce.

"Mateo, I told you to stay back," Bruce sighed.

"I'm not going to let him be angry at you for you being protective of me," Mateo retorted before looking at the man from the car. **"He wasn't doing anything wrong."**

" **Little runt keep your words to yourself and stay in the gutter where you belong,"** the man said contemptuously.

Bruce growled low in his throat and started towards the man angrily. Unfortunately a tugging on his trouser leg stopped him from expressing his anger.

"Dad, no that isn't a good idea," Mateo said worriedly.

" **Listen to me you little man, if my son wasn't here I would beat you to a pulp and leave you bleeding to death on this spot. But seeing as I have to set a good example I will let you go with your life,"** Bruce snarled.

To emphasise the point he stamped his foot and the man jumped slightly as the concrete cracked from the strength that Bruce had gained through his anger. One look at the American's eyes and the man's courage failed him and he retreated swiftly to his car.

As the man fled Bruce could feel the Other Guy shouting angrily to be let out and to chase the puny white scrap of metal that was disappearing into the distance. Bruce let out a deep breath and was slightly worried when the anger refused to go away. If anything it was starting to boil in his gut and work up his spine.

"Mateo you need to go home," Bruce said in a shaky voice.

"I'm not leaving you," Mateo said stubbornly.

The child walked around to see his father's face and was surprised when the man's normally warm brown eyes were burning green. "Err Dad, your eyes."

Bruce tried to keep his breathing slow and deliberate, but the Other Guy had been caged for so long that he wasn't backing down without a fight.

"Seriously Mateo, you aren't safe here," Bruce choked out.

"I know you won't hurt me," Mateo said confidently and wrapped his arms around Bruce's leg. "I love you."

The rumbling in Bruce's mind quietened minutely, as if pacified or surprised by the sheer amount of love and trust exhibited by the child. Bruce was equally surprised, and gently disentangled the boy so that he could kneel. Once at the same level as Mateo the boy threw his arms around the man's neck and refused to let go.

Bruce was shocked that the Other Guy seemed to rumble happily and settled down once more as the child continued to hug him.

Mateo knew that something was deeply wrong with his dad as soon as the man started to get extremely angry. It was completely unlike his dad to lose control of his emotions, and for a moment Mateo was afraid. But then he seemed to sense that his Dad didn't really want to be like this and something else was trying to get out. When he saw the angry green eyes that had replaced the brown ones then Mateo was certain that there was something else at play here. Although the child had learnt some ways of treating illnesses, his Dad hadn't taught him anything to do with angry people, so he did what came first into his head. He hugged his dad and said that he loved him, which he realised was completely true.

His Dad seemed to be shocked by this and for a second Mateo was worried he had done something wrong, but then the man had knelt down and returned the hug and he knew he had done the right thing.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

At the same time, thousands of miles away, a man dressed in a black suit knocked on a door and stepped through it into an office. The balding man waited patiently for the taller dark skinned man at the desk to finish his work and acknowledge him.

"Sir, we could have a problem," the newcomer announced.

"How so Coulson?" the man at the desk asked.

"Our agent tailing Doctor Banner reports that he seems to have adopted a child," Coulson waited for Director Fury to process the information.

"Where exactly did he pick the child up from? Did he do it to blend with the locals do they think? Having an Indian child isn't exactly subtle," Fury thought aloud.

"The agent doesn't know where the child came from but apparently he has been around for the last few months, possibly since January. The child is described as being small, possibly four or five, with long black hair and green eyes and being from England most likely. The agent was able to get close to them in a market and the boy definitely had an English accent," Coulson repeated from the report.

"How the hell did an English child appear in the middle of India without his parents?" Fury grabbed the file and started skim reading it.

"It is not clear, but the child does not seem to be upset with the new arrangement. According to the agent he has actually started to look healthier and happier over the last few months than the first time he had seen the boy," Coulson again repeated the information in the file.

"Surely Banner realises he is a walking bomb, adopting a child is the last thing he should do," Fury muttered.

"Do you wish for the agent to separate the child and bring him here for questioning?" Coulson asked, hoping for a negative response.

"No, leave them together but if there is any sign of trouble then the child is to be separated for his own safety. Tell the agent to keep a close eye on them and to make contact the moment the Hulk shows any hint of making an appearance," Fury ordered.

Coulson nodded and left to relay the instructions, leaving the Director to muse over the bizarre development.


	8. Chapter 8 - Musings and Moving

**Hello again! I'm back again from deepest darkest Wales, I had no internet and no mobile reception pretty much all week which in a way was bliss. We spent most of the time on the coast apart from heading to Beddgelert, and nipped to Powys Castle on the way home. If any of you are in the UK I would recommend a trip to both places, they are beautiful!**

 **I will update again on Monday then we shall return to the normal Friday/Monday posting. Thanks again to everyone who had reviewed and followed/favourited, I'm still catching up with everything over the last week.**

 **Chapter Eight – Musings and Moving**

Bruce and Mateo fell into a comfortable routine and soon time had flown by and they were preparing for their third Christmas together. They had left Kochi just under a month after the Incident, as Bruce was still uncomfortable with settling in one place for too long especially after getting so close to losing control.

Thankfully Mateo was not overly concerned by their rather nomadic lifestyle and the two were enjoying seeing the world. Bruce ended up returning to some countries he had already visited, but to Mateo everything was new and his excitement and curiosity was infectious. At the moment, three years after Mateo had attached himself to Bruce, they were in China and Bruce was busy preparing vegetables for their evening meal while Mateo was doing some homework at the dining room table. The quiet allowed Bruce to mull over some questions he had about the boy.

Mateo had grown quickly once he had started to have regular healthy meals, and with proper care and attention he had started to put on muscle as well as weight. His hair became much more manageable with soap and grooming, and when allowed to grow long it fell in messy waves that were faintly reminiscent of Bruce's hair. It helped immensely as they easily passed off as father and son without any need to convince strangers. Mateo was more delicate and his vivid green eyes were almost polar opposites to Bruce's own dark brown ones, but people often just attributed the differences as being inherited from his mother.

Mateo was different to most normal children Bruce remembered encountering in western countries as he liked fruit and vegetables and was not overly fond of sweet things. Mateo loved music and had a flair for stringed instruments, and would pretty much always were green clothes if he could pick out his own wardrobe. Bruce remembered him being heartbroken when his original clothes from Kochi wore through and had to be chucked away. All they had of their first house and first year together was Mateo's toy dog, which he had called Bingo after the song, and a few of Mateo's favourite sketches.

But along with all the normal things to discover about a child, Bruce had noticed some odd irregularities about the child that puzzled him. First off there was the unexplainable explanation as to how the child had fallen asleep in his uncle's shed and woken up in India. The fact that Mateo had known it had been four days before Christmas ruled out drugging and abduction, but there was no other explanation. Bruce shrugged it off as 'magic' and gave up trying to figure that out before he gave himself a headache.

Secondly the child's nightmares were not what Bruce was expecting them to be at all. Considering all that the boy had been through with his aunt and uncle Bruce assumed that the nightmares were from Vernon beating him or something similar. Although in the first few years the nightmares with his uncle did occur, Mateo seemed to outgrow them and they became bad dreams rather than nightmares. What apparently was the most common nightmare for the child, on the rare occasion Mateo talked about them, was of a scary man chasing him down and that he would die in a flash of green light. Occasionally the child would awaken and cling grimly to Bruce, and it was on these nights that he knew that Mateo had dreamed of Bruce being killed by the green light rather than Mateo himself.

The intricacies of psychology passed over Bruce's head when it came to the science of interpreting dreams, but he hadn't a clue where this man had originated from. He had worried that the green light was related to the Other Guy, but Mateo said that he had been having the same reoccurring dream even when he was at his aunt and uncle's house.

Thirdly was that Mateo was able to do very strange things when he least expected it. Once Mateo had been too engrossed in telling Bruce about playing with the other children and started to cross the road without looking. Bruce had shouted in panic as he saw a car bearing down on his son, but then suddenly Mateo was at his side again rather than halfway across the road. Mateo looked terrified and almost burst into tears, so Bruce merely hugged him and carried on like normal.

The first monsoon storm Mateo had experienced had been a bad one, and the child was terrified of the wind, rain and thunder that battered their house. Bruce had cuddled him for ages until a particularly clap of thunder made the boy squeak in fright. Then the sound stopped completely. Bruce could still see the rain lashing against the window and the power cables outside continued to flail in the wind, but the pair of them seemed to be in a soundproof bubble. Once again Bruce acted cool with it and Mateo soon fell asleep, but Bruce lay awake for a good long while trying to figure out what had happened.

Bruce liked the world of science where everything could be explained by logic and mathematical equations. However he was starting to entertain the thought that his son could not be explained by science, rather like himself. He knew of mutants that could do seemingly impossible things, and he himself defied the laws of physics when he turned into the Other Guy, but he had never heard of anyone having the same powers as Mateo. He was annoyed that he couldn't go to anyone with this and ask the hundreds of questions that he had, as doing so would likely alert the authorities to his presence and that would not end well. There were rumours of a mutant safe house somewhere in America, but trying to find it was an incredibly stupid idea.

Besides, he did not want to worry the child, as Mateo had become a happy and healthy child that was finally confident enough to go and play with other children and wasn't constantly looking for Bruce nearby. The man was pretty certain that forcing the boy to undergo tests or talk to complete strangers about what occasionally happened would just destroy his trust in Bruce, so he left the questions alone. Bruce was certain that an answer would eventually reveal itself, and he was content to wait until that day came around.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Dumbledore was ready to pull his hair out, both from his head and his chin, as he paced furiously by his fire. Three years ago Harry had disappeared from the locked shed and there had been no sighting of the child since. The wards around 4 Privet Drive had completely disappeared, meaning that returning the child to that house would be next to impossible without some serious reworking of new wards. Arabella had been rather persistent in her letters to Dumbledore for the first few weeks until he had explained to her the problem then sworn her to secrecy.

Luckily he was able to pretend that everything was normal when at Hogwarts, so no one had noticed the boy's disappearance. The professors were a bit suspicious of Albus being increasingly absent from the school, but he merely told them that he was following leads and left them to make their own conclusions. It was a widely regarded opinion amongst those who were most concerned with his actions that Voldemort was not completely gone. So if Albus was working to bring about his complete destruction then the teachers were happy for him to be gone as much as he wanted and they worked to cover the void as needed.

Albus had spent the last few years swearing hundreds of people into secrecy before questioning them about any hint of the Boy-Who-Lived's whereabouts, only to come away with nothing. No one in Europe, both in the magical and muggle communities, had heard about the boy.

The only thing that kept his hope alive was that Harry Potter still appeared on the list of prospective students. If the boy had managed to survive this long wherever he was, then he had a good chance of making it to reaching eleven. And on that day Albus would anxiously look for his letter to find out exactly where the little nuisance had been hiding all these years.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Bruce once again awoke to the smell of baking and smiled happily. It had become a tradition each Christmas that Mateo would bake something for their breakfast before they opened presents. After leaving India almost a year after Mateo arrived the two had travelled extensively. For two years they had wound through most Asian countries, including the islands, and although they had never settled in an area for more than a couple of weeks the pair were content. Mateo had taken to Vietnam and its history so they had stayed there for four months, with Bruce grabbing what work he could whilst Mateo absorbed all the knowledge he wanted.

The next place that they had settled in for an extended period was in their current house in Shanghai. The city was much more connected to the wider world than Bruce would have liked or was used to, but he had an ulterior motive which was to be revealed today. Mateo had already picked up on the differences in this location to the norm of others but he had not questioned it. He had once again become interested in the Chinese culture and history so was much more interested in learning.

Bruce rolled out of his bed, grateful that the house had come fully furnished with two beds, and quickly got dressed before sneaking into the kitchen. Mateo was too engrossed to hear him and Bruce was able to grab him and lift him into a hug as the boy giggled and protested. Bruce thought that even with his greater strength it would not be many years before he was unable to do that easily anymore.

"Merry Christmas squirt!" Bruce said happily.

"And the same to you Dad! Now let me down so I can finish breakfast," Mateo ordered with mock severity.

"Yes sir," Bruce chuckled. "What are we having this year?"

"I'm not telling, so go lay the table or something," Mateo said crossly.

Bruce, still smiling, grabbed some cutlery and did as he was told before quickly making a pot of tea. He had been surprised when Mateo discovered he like the tea that Bruce drank, and the two had started to share a pot together at breakfast time. Mateo was not much longer and proudly presented his father with a tray of croissants, with jam and butter.

"You've outdone yourself this time Mateo, did you learn this from the lady at the bakery?" Bruce asked as Mateo slid two onto his plate.

"Yes, apparently she learnt it off a student on their gap year who was working to pay his way while travelling," Mateo explained as he passed over the jam.

After their breakfast they swapped gifts, and Bruce was surprised to see that Mateo had somehow been able to buy much more than he had been giving him for an allowance. Mateo smiled craftily and kept his secret, and Bruce let him, he knew the child would not be doing anything illegal.

Mateo knew their lifestyle could change any day, so he had decided to buy Bruce an iPod and had managed to find enough free classical music to fill it. He hadn't been sure if Bruce liked that genre, but he thought it could be useful when Bruce was stressed. Bruce smiled happily at the gift and started flicking through the various songs to see what he had.

Mateo looked at his small pile and started with the larger gifts. Bruce had been practical in his gifts too and had bought Mateo a variety of useful clothing items that were more expensive than they usually would have spent on clothes. Seeing as Mateo had a habit of filling his sketch pad with odd doodles Bruce had also bought him a folder to keep his important sketches in while the pad could be discarded. Finally the boy came across an envelope placed at the bottom of the pile and opened it curiously. Inside was merely a letter with a date on it, and as he skimmed through it Mateo managed to get the gist of the letter being about a hospital appointment.

"What's this Dad?" Mateo asked.

"I've been doing a bit of research and I found the best local hospital that deals with plastic surgery and optical impairments. We both know you hate that scar on your head, and that you need glasses. If you want to, and _only_ if you want to, then I have the funds for you to have both of those problems fixed. But I want to stress that you only have to do this if you want to," Bruce stressed.

"But that is likely to cost loads, and it is only skin so it would be a complete waste of time," Mateo protested.

"I don't care, you haven't noticed that I have been saving which proves we are doing well enough that I can afford for you to have the operation. So don't worry about that," Bruce said firmly.

"Are you sure?" Mateo asked, amazed at his Dad's generosity.

"I am certain, if you want to then I trust that hospital and I want you to be happy," Bruce said firmly.

"Then yes! Thanks Dad!" Mateo said and flung himself forward for a hug.

Two months later Mateo was limping around with a bandage on his leg and forehead, and a wide grin as he looked at the world with a new level of detail.


	9. Chapter 9 - Inevitable Meeting

**Hello everyone! Thanks again to everyone who left reviews or followed/favourited the story.**

 **In regards to a lot of the reviews sorry about the confusion over the leg injury. We all know that curse scars cannot be healed, but I thought that perhaps a skin graft would be able to hide it. For that you need healthy skin, and from the people I know that have had them it seems that the thigh is a common place to get such skin. So that is why he has a bandage on his forehead and leg.**

 **Chapter Nine – Inevitable Meeting**

Once Mateo was fully healed from the surgery and skin graft they managed to barter travel on a lorry travelling all the way across China. Once at the western border they hitched lifts through Afghanistan westwards to Egypt before heading southwards. Mateo had not been as fond of Africa as he had been of China, mostly because of the greater heat and lack of vegetation in areas. However he had liked the challenge of trying to learn the languages and had amassed numerous bone bead bracelets and colourful clothes.

By the time Mateo was nine he was completely unrecognisable from the tiny bundle of bones that Bruce had found in the dark alleyway. Their travelling had led to the boy developing a well-tanned complexion, while Bruce's healthy cooking had given him a sleek and toned youthful body. His insatiable thirst for knowledge had led to him being well beyond his years in traditional schooling while he was relatively fluent in a number of languages. As they had travelled Mateo had learnt as much as he could from each country, and could now speak Malayalam, Hindi, Spanish, Mandarin, and a generous smattering of Arabic.

Unlike when they had lived in India and Asia the pair never felt the urge to settle for long in any other country. They would perhaps settle for a week in a village, Bruce plying his trade and Mateo helping by selling sketches, before moving on once more. It was in South Africa that they bartered labour and cooking skills for passage to Brazil, and they learnt that Mateo was not so much of a fan of sailing and the unending ocean. Bruce almost felt guilty by his son's unhappiness with being cooped up on a container ship for 10 days, but they couldn't turn back.

They followed the usual routine of picking a direction and walking or hitchhiking until it was near dusk when they found somewhere to stay for the night. Bruce had learnt a smattering of Portuguese on his previous wanderings so he was able to easily converse with the locals. Mateo naturally set about picking it up as quickly as possible from anyone around him, and pretty much immediately endeared himself to the woman they were lodging with through his eagerness to help.

Although the pair enjoyed the countryside they couldn't find much work beyond Bruce taking a job on an oil palm plantation so they headed back towards the larger cities. Purely by chance they ended up near Rio de Janeiro and ten minutes in the city taught both of them how cautious they had to be, but also how useful Bruce could be. Their lighter skin attracted some attention but the fact that both of them were wearing clothes about as worn as the locals saved them from too much unwanted conversation. A few street children did flock around the pair but when they also saw that the only thing of worth the two owned was the pair of glasses Bruce had in his top pocket they soon lost interest.

After a few enquiries they found out how bad the medical facilities were around the area and Bruce quickly managed to find a hut that was unoccupied for them to rent. It was pretty basic compared to some houses they had rented in China and India, but at least on par or better than some places they had stayed in in Africa. They had arrived early enough that Bruce managed to get some shopping done while Mateo tried to set about organising their large 1 room building into something more manageable. By the evening they were slightly comfortably settled and decided to get an early night to be well rested for the next day.

It took a while for them to gain any patients but like everywhere else, once people knew they came to gain some cheap advice or attention for odd maladies. Within a week they had helped a number of people and had assisted a nearby mother with the delivery of her healthy son. After then they managed to gain the respect of their neighbours and were busy most days all day with visits that started to become increasingly distant.

Three weeks after arriving their reasonably comfortable existence was shattered in an almost predictable but surprising way. They were on their way back from a man who had suffered a factory accident and had almost lost some fingers. Bruce had not been too happy with the state that the man was in but by the time he had finished cleaning the wounds and leaving instructions he was at least reasonably confident that the man would keep all his digits. Mateo was as usual following him, learning how to treat people and also absorbing the language and culture.

" **Doctor! Do you have a spare moment?"** a voice hailed them.

A rather burly and worried man hurried up to them from down one of the numerous alleys.

" **What's wrong?"** Bruce asked, tired but unable to in all good conscience leave someone suffering.

" **My friend was on a rood but fell off, we heard that you are good, can you come?"** the man asked.

" **Lead the way,"** Bruce gestured and the man set off at the same pace again and led them a short distance through the winding streets to a small warehouse on the edge of a more business orientated district of the city.

As soon as they entered Bruce knew they had been duped, there was indeed a man lying in the centre of the room but the Other Guy was instantly alerting him to there being more going on around them. But before he could say anything to Mateo the door was slammed shut behind them and he was grabbed by both arms and the neck, whilst a muffled shout told him someone else had grabbed his son. The man on the floor quickly got up and disappeared into the background, whilst four men stepped forward.

The one standing in the middle was obviously in charge, his hair was slicked back and he wore numerous rings on his fingers, but the most eye-catching aspect of him was his piercing blue eyes. His clothes were of a much better quality than everyone else's and were obviously for show and comfort and not for physical use like his numerous cronies. An exceptionally tall and muscular man standing next to him was also quite well dressed but it didn't take much deduction to see that he put more pride in his muscles than his brain. Bruce was starting to inspect the other two men and was trying to ascertain how many were in the room in total when the leader spoke.

" **It is good to meet you my good Doctor,"** he started in a friendly manner.

" **If you want my help you don't exactly have to threaten me,"** Bruce said back honestly.

" **I apologise, in my line of work I have learnt it is best to be cautious and make your point from the start,"** the man smiled winningly but did not motion for his men to stand down.

Bruce wriggled minutely to check how much room he had to move, and learnt that the answer was not very much at all. **"I can tell. So what do you want with me?"**

" **I can tell you are new to the area if you do not know who I am,"** the man said obviously. **"I am Glaucio and you have started operating in my area."**

" **I didn't realise there was a monopoly of cartel doctors,"** Bruce said before he could stop himself.

He was unsurprised when he was rewarded with a punch to the stomach from one of the men holding him. He knew there would be no permanent damage, in fact any kind of damage would be healed in a matter of minutes, but the blow still hurt and he bent double out of reflex. Bruce heard Mateo struggling nearby but whoever held him kept the child under control. Once he could stand straight again he did, and the man carried on as if there had been no interruption.

" **Your house and all your patients live within the part of the city which belongs to me and my men. Now, I appreciate the fact that you are doing good work for the people. However it is customary for businesses to pay tax to run a business, so I expect one thousand real a month, Egidio will be visiting regularly to pick it up,"** Glaucio stated.

" **But we don't have enough patients to make that much a month! Let alone the fact that usually medical professions are exempt from such taxes in most countries,"** Bruce argued.

" **Well you will have to find more people or charge more, I would have thought you were making a decent wage from the suckers you treat,"** Glaucio ignored the second point Bruce had raised.

" **If you listened then you would know we only ask people to pay what they can afford, not charge them extortionately for Dad to help them. If anything you should be paying us for helping your area escaping the Malthusian Trap,"** Mateo spoke angrily.

" **What are you yapping about runt?"** Glaucio asked.

" **The Malthusian Trap states that after a leap in advancement there is a lag in humanity being able to catch up. So around here your business and the city may be booming, but services have lagged behind meaning the people are suffering despite there being better resources around because there are too many people. Dad is helping fix that, meaning that your business will be booming again,"** Mateo explained. Bruce was both proud and terrified for his son as he was talking without fear of the gun pressed against his head.

" **You should know better than to take that tone with an elder,"** the leader obviously was not pleased with being proved ignorant and nodded to his henchman holding Mateo to give him a slap.

Mateo yelped a bit at the pain, which caused the Other Guy to violently revolt against Bruce's control over him. Ever since he had been grabbed Bruce had been making sure that he did not lose it, but the fact that they were moving on to hurting his son was testing the limits of his resolve to not let the other guy beat the gang into the dirt.

" **So anyway, if you wish to continue helping people then you will have to find some way of coming up with the money. I'm afraid it isn't uncommon for thing to go missing in such a big city as this,"** Glaucio started to pace forward until he was barely a few feet from Bruce. **"You know, bags, wallets… children."**

" **You touch Mateo and you will never see another sunrise,"** Bruce said vehemently, struggling in the grip of the men even more now.

" **You are in no position to dictate terms,"** Glaucio laughed. **"I like your spirit, but I'm afraid you need teaching about your position in this city. You may be American and a doctor, but I am in charge around here. Egidio, I think perhaps the child would make the longest lasting impression. Nothing permanently debilitating."**

Bruce saw the goon restraining Mateo walk forward and turned ninety degrees so that Mateo was visible to both Bruce and Glaucio, while the incredibly tall man who hadn't moved pulled out a small item from his pocket. A click of a button caused the blade to spring out, and the man advanced with a hint of a sadistic smile on his mouth.

Mateo froze and seemed to almost stop breathing as the blade drew closer to his face. Egidio seemed to pause to decide where to start cutting, and this gave Bruce all the time he needed. Without thinking about the consequences of releasing the Other Guy in an urban area he _forced_ him out and fell into the darkness of unknowing.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

The Hulk snorted in disgust as the man in front of him attacked him with a knife, which as usual made contact with his skin and bounced harmlessly off. Almost carefully he picked the one who dared to threaten his boy up and held them him so that they were looking eye to eye.

"Mine. No threaten," he growled possessively. The man gripped in his hand whimpered and the Hulk almost chuckled at the sight.

However he knew that there were more that could threaten his child so he carelessly flung the man away from him. Had the Hulk cared about his actions he would have seen the man fly through the air until he slammed into the brick wall. The man slid to the floor and didn't move again.

As the Hulk turned back to the room the men seemed to regain their wits and opened fire on him in an attempt to bring him down. The Hulk found it amusing to destroy those who tried to hurt him with just a flick of his hand, to see those who thought they were safe suddenly realise their mistakes. Banner's memories had shown him that there were at least seven in the building, but the Hulk knew there were more than that who would appear from the shadows.

The giant man did give a grin of satisfaction when he span and kicked a man who had been trying to sneak up on him with a machete. The ensuing scream and thump of the man landing on the concrete added to the Hulk's growing feeling of satisfaction at the carnage he was creating.

In seemingly no time at all the room was littered with fifteen dead men, their necks snapped or their skulls caved in. The Hulk surveyed his work before huffing in satisfaction.

But then he realised that the one being he was looking for who should be alive wasn't there. The Hulk didn't panic, he didn't have the mental capacity for such an emotional response, but he did start to hurriedly stomp around the room inspecting the dead to ensure he hadn't made a mistake. But none of the fifteen were the one he was looking for.

A rattle of a box against one wall had the Hulk turning around rapidly, ready to crush whoever was sneaking up on him. However he stopped when he saw the small figure with a mop of untidy hair appear from behind the crate.

The Hulk had never really given much thought to whoever was around him and what they thought of him. Usually he was too busy fending off the bullets and the men trying to hurt him, but now there was no one to bother him in this room apart from the child.

In the recesses of his mind the Hulk felt his Bruce perk up at the sight of the child, and through their link he felt _happiness_ and _love_. Hulk shook his head at that, those emotions weren't useful when smashing people.

He realised he had been staring for a while and the child hadn't moved. Normally by now the people would have either started attacking him or had run away screaming, but this tiny child was still crouched between two crates and was looking warily but calmly at the Hulk.

"Dad? Are you alright Dad?" the tiny child called.

' _Dad?'_ the Hulk rolled the word around his brain in confusion. He was the Hulk, not Dad.

But then from Banner he got a jolt of memories pushed through. The child was his, and called him dad. Normally the Hulk ignored whatever feed he got from Banner, it was usually full of jumbled emotions and fast-paced thoughts that were useless to him. But now he let the thoughts through the link and tried to use them to make sense of the new incident that they were facing.

The whole situation was foreign and confusing to the Hulk, the last time he had been free there had been no small child and he had been free to smash and run to his hearts content. But now there was this thing here, and he had the strange urge to check it was alright.

The Hulk carefully padded forwards, ensuring he didn't step on any of the bodies, until he was a short distance from the crates. He sat down with a bit of a thump so that he wasn't so tall and leant towards the child.

"Mateo," he grunted, the word was foreign on his tongue but bounced around his brain and sparked a few memories from Bruce.

"Hey Dad, you certainly showed them," Mateo said tentatively.

The Hulk barely breathed as the child emerged from the gap. He wouldn't admit it but he felt an odd sense of worry that the child would run away from him. But Mateo was more concerned in dragging a bag from out of his hiding spot.

"Sorry I spoke back to them, I shouldn't have angered them. They might not have attacked if I hadn't," the child spoke unhappily.

The Hulk was confused about why it was apologising, men often only wanted to hurt Banner and the Hulk so why would today have been any different. So he ignored the boy's words and continued to stare at the child, memorising his face and the odd feeling of trust and love that was leaking through from his other half.

"Mine," the Hulk rumbled instead, and carefully reached out a hand to stroke the boy's head.

And for a short while he and his Bruce forgot about the bodies around them and merely revelled together in the feeling of happiness they got from seeing Mateo accept the Hulk. The boy did not scream or run away, but merely sat on the Hulk's bent knee and seemed to closely inspect his face. After cataloguing the similarities and differences Mateo turned to playing with the Hulk's enormous hands that could engulf his entire head easily.

"So this is what happens when you get angry," Mateo said by way of conversation.

The Hulk, who was not one for conversation, grunted in confirmation. He knew there had been something different about this change, his Banner seemed much more willing to work with him to help them fix the situation. However he wasn't about to try and explain that, so instead of attempting to talk he focussed on gently moving his hands where the child was directing them. The tiny lifeform in his lap was obviously trying to do something by pushing against his hands, but his strength was so little that he had no effect on his own green hands.

After a while it became obvious that the child was trying to climb onto his hand, and then wanted to ladder upwards between his hands as high as the Hulk could reach. The odd warm feeling in his heart had the Hulk complying with the child's wishes and soon the boy was above his head sitting in the palm of his hand chuckling in amusement.

The Hulk was almost worried when the child moved violently and almost toppled from his hand. In reaction he brought his hand back down to chest height so that he could look directly into the eyes of the boy. When he had the small being's attention he frowned and huffed disapprovingly.

"Sorry Dad," Mateo said as he realised what the green behemoth was trying to convey.

Mateo was worried that he was going to be ignored as punishment for his slightly wild behaviour up on the Hulk's hand. He had only turned around and stumbled whilst doing so, and now his changed father was setting him down. He was going to protest the act when the green giant let out a huge sigh that ruffled his hair. At the same time the green started to lose its vibrant hue and he started shrinking. Mateo guessed correctly that his dad was coming back, so he went to get the bag and waited for Bruce to wake up.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

The next time Bruce was aware of anything he was lying on the floor of the same warehouse the whole incident had started in, with fifteen dead men scattered around the large room. Mateo was sitting nearby, clutching the medical bag protectively and pointedly not looking at the bodies. After checking that he was alright Bruce tugged the trousers and shirt off of one of the dead men to wear before they hurriedly left the building. By nightfall they were on the first cargo ship out of the country, heading to some unknown country.

Seeing as he got incredibly seasick Mateo spent as much of the journey sleeping as possible, which suited Bruce well as he had a lot of thinking to do. In all his experiences with the Other Guy he had never known him to be so restrained in his actions as the incident in Brazil. Sure, fifteen gang members were dead but the warehouse was still standing and his alter ego had remained there. Normally after an incident Bruce would wake up miles away from the scene as his other half had formed an alley of destruction out of there. He couldn't explain the change. He had a notion though, and Bruce was almost reluctant to consider the possibility that the Other Guy had been as protective of Mateo as he himself was. It made everything a whole lot easier if that was true, he didn't have to worry about the Other Guy crushing Mateo in his rage.

Mateo hadn't spoken much of the event, he was obviously trying to forget whatever he had seen and Bruce wasn't going to stop him. The child had seemed disturbed by the bodies but had had no compunctions about taking Bruce's hand and willingly leaving with him. That hopefully was a positive indicator that the Other Guy did indeed act protectively around the child, and that the two of them had bonded somehow.


	10. Chapter 10 - Change in Pattern

**A/N: Once again thanks to everyone who has joined in following/favouriting/reviewing since the last chapter, I really appreciate every one of you taking note of this story!**

 **In this chapter the timeline may get a bit fuzzy, I'm randomly and quickly jumping time here to get on with the story. In this chapter alone we start off in Brazil (which is late 2010), move through 2011 rather vaguely and into early 2012. The next two chapters all occur within a month (specifically January 2012), and twelve ends around February 2012. Chapter thirteen covers from about March 2012 to May 2012 and after that I hope my timeline improves in clarity.**

Bruce had been incredibly careful over the years to avoid any kind of interaction that would end up unleashing the Other Guy, but after his willing change in Brazil he felt slightly less like he had to walk on eggshells. The Other Guy seemed to not be inclined at all to hurt Mateo, and indeed seeing as he had apparently attempted to comfort the child he may be as protective of the boy as Bruce was himself.

So seeing as the Other Guy wouldn't likely trample the child Bruce allowed himself to relax his rigid control slightly. He still refused to even let the chance of slipping up occur, but he allowed the Other Guy a little more wiggle room within the dark recesses of his mind. When he got angry he would allow his other side to voice his discomfort and allowed himself to feel that part of him, but Bruce never let himself get carried away.

Their ship had fortuitously ended up making land in South Africa once more, but with no reliable access to any kind of media Bruce was slightly hindered in picking the safest routes to travel. As a result of this handicap their journey through Africa was slightly hesitant and aimless, however they both agreed that they would head back in the direction of Asia once more.

Seeing as Mateo was rather terrified of extended water travel, and the inevitable sea sickness, they had to make do with the longer route across the land. This did work well at times as Bruce purposefully detoured them through some nature reserves. It cost more than Bruce would have liked but he found them a room in a small hotel and they spent a few days touring the area in a Land Rover watching the wildlife.

It was money well spent though as Mateo spent the entire time asking questions of the guide, who was very fluent in English and could reply easily, and staring at whatever animal was nearby. The child filled an entire sketchpad with drawings of animals and patterns in the evenings, and during the day he was constantly trying to find some kind of animal nearby. Once Bruce almost had to physically drag Mateo back into the vehicle to stop him from climbing out to follow after cheetah they had spotted.

Their wanderings were not always so pleasant though, and it was purely through luck and chance at times that the two avoided conflict. Passing through the borders of African countries had been relatively easy, Bruce had picked up good forged passports so they were rarely given a second glance. Even if people started to prod he could easily explain that he was a travelling doctor, and nine times out of ten the guards would let them through.

There were times when the pair had to leave areas at speed though. They had been in the process of through Egypt when the protests started up at the beginning of 2011. Whilst most other tourists in the area were able to catch hastily arranged flights back to their home countries Bruce was stuck trying to figure out how to get them both away quickly and safely.

He had been planning for them to travel across the land and drop back into India but apparently the whole area was boiling over with civil unrest. True the entire area from Iraq to Afghanistan had been an unsettled region for a while but they had had no trouble crossing the area on the way through the first time. They had hitched a ride with various lorries towing food which may have helped the situation.

However Bruce had been able to pose as a tourist and access travel resources, and what he saw worried him. In the year it had been since they had left China, crossed through Iraq and on to Brazil the region in question had seriously devolved in reputation. There were news reports of worries about child soldiers and Bruce was determined that they were not going to go anywhere near that. The life Mateo had might not be as sheltered as most children his age but there was no way Bruce would allow him to know that such things occurred.

Mateo's intense dislike of water travel cut off the option of travelling by ship, and rumours of pirates further limited that option. They couldn't fly legally either, airliners would record passengers and that could be disastrous if someone recognised him. They could attempt to head through Europe, but that was an insane idea and went against all of Bruce's rules.

So it seemed that they were stuck in Africa with no way back. That wouldn't have been too much of a hardship but both of them had agreed that they wanted to head back to India, and as much as Africa had excited them it didn't feel as home-like as Asia did.

They retreated from Cairo and every country that looked like they could erupt into violence and found elsewhere to stay. To Bruce it was infuriating as they were backtracking but he stamped down the feeling and focussed on their travelling. With everything else influenced by the outer world Bruce liked being in control of where they were headed, he liked be in control of something.

Mateo was the one to suggest trying to settle to helping people again until the situation calmed down and they could head back to India. There were plenty of countries and outbreaks to choose from but Bruce chose Kenya considering there was a large influx of refugees. They had been nomadic for a few months when the news spoke of a huge rise in people fleeing Somalia to Kenya, and that facilities for said refugees were rather limited and pathetic.

As good as their intentions had been, when they arrived in the area Bruce realised how naïve he had been. There had already been a large number of refugees coming into the area, and the huge rise in numbers made the situation dire. The American had been planning on alternating working with helping the refugees but it was obvious that plan would not work out; there were simply too many people in the area already looking to support their families through any means necessary.

Bruce was prepared to turn them around and head right away from the area when they were spotted. He had directed them to one of the many small roadside refreshment huts/shops that often sprung up on main roads and Mateo was sitting at a plastic table sipping a drink. As the adult Bruce was having a broken conversation with the shop owner about travel routes from the area when a bus pulled up outside.

It wasn't hard for Bruce to excuse himself and head back to Mateo as the owner was more interested in the sudden influx of customers. The observant child had already picked up on the potential problem and was hunched slightly in his chair as if uncertain what to do.

"Should we slip away?" Mateo asked.

"Finish your drink, it would look suspicious if we just up and leave now," Bruce advised.

So Mateo did as he was told but his constantly darting eyes revealed his unhappiness at the situation. It only got worse as the people from the coach approached the shop and formed a queue for refreshments.

"Hello there," an unfamiliar voice with a distinctly German accent called over.

"Hello," Bruce replied politely whilst trying to think fast.

"How are you doing? This weather is glorious is it not? In February it barely gets up to 10oC where I live," the German continued to chatter as he took a spare seat at their table.

Bruce internally groaned but kept a polite look on his face as the German settled himself in his chair. The man was quite tall and lean with neatly trimmed and combed black hair, with a fine and well maintained moustache. The pale blue shirt and cream pants didn't look particularly like the type that tourists usually wore, and Bruce idly tried to figure out what the man was. From the smart clothing and obvious personal grooming he hazarded a guess at possible a news reporter.

"I'd be worried if Germany was the same temperature as at the Equator," Bruce fought of his unease to continue the conversation politely.

"So what are you two doing out here? You are a long way from home," the man asked.

"We travel around a lot so I don't think we have somewhere to call home," Bruce said evasively. "But we were in the area and heard of the situation here and Mateo suggested we come and see if we could help. I didn't really think it through and it turns out we wouldn't be able to make even a dent here."

"What were you hoping to accomplish here?" the German prodded.

"I'm a travelling doctor," Bruce explained.

"Ah, like us all!" the newcomer exclaimed happily.

Bruce took a quick look at the others around them and realised that the man wasn't lying. Whilst their luggage had remained on the battered native coach the people themselves gave away a lot of details. They were surprisingly uniformed in their appearances, all had sensible haircuts and short beards if the males actually had facial hair. And their clothing had a similar theme of being practical and durable, rather than flimsily thin.

Whilst Bruce has seen a number of tourists before who seemed to sport a lost look, a couple of the group seemed rather absentminded. However another seemingly random member of the large group would come and assist them rather than leaving the unknown person to fend for themselves. And those that had the habit of forgetting what to do quite often sported a look that Bruce recognised from a number of his old colleagues.

"You're not all German though," Bruce said aloud as he heard a distinctly French voice amongst the hubbub.

"We are part of Doctors Without Borders, I am Kristian Weber," Kristian offered his hand.

"Bruce Johnson, and this is my son Mateo," Bruce gave the name off his forged passport.

"Nice to meet you," Mateo mumbled and extended his hand politely.

"What a well mannered young man," Kristian gave a smile that revealed his perfectly white teeth. "What were you planning to do now?"

"We wouldn't have enough money to follow our standard pattern here, nor the means to obtain more. So I think we will head north again and perhaps look into helping in some of the rural communities," Bruce lied.

"I'm pretty sure we have two spare seats on the bus," offered Kristian. "A few people ended up getting sick and had to cancel their places once everything was arranged. There is a facility we are travelling to with rooms for treating patients as well as wards, and sleeping quarters for staff."

"I doubt I have the right paperwork to be accepted," Bruce tried to decline.

"I'm sure that if we opened the idea for discussion them the majority of my fellows would be fine with you accompanying us. We can observe your bedside manner and check your diagnoses until we are sure you are satisfactory," Kristian's easily delivered solution blew apart Bruce's protests.

"Hang on I need to discuss this with Mateo," Bruce gave a polite and apologetic smile before turning his attention to the child at the table.

 **"What do we think? Should we stick with these doctors or head off again?"** Bruce asked in Malayalam.

 **"I don't know, we don't want to run the risk of being recognised but there isn't a safe way back to India. At least we know we can be of use here, you can use their equipment and drugs and we would get free food and lodging,"** Mateo kept his face carefully neutral and calm as he spoke so as to not give anything away.

 **"We have to be extremely careful to use our false names, and if there would ever be reporters around we would have to find an excuse to get out of the limelight,"** Bruce rambled.

 **"I know Dad,"** Mateo gave the adult a reassuring smile. **"We are already here and have been given a way to help people, I think we should take it."**

 **"Alright then,"** Bruce smiled back and turned to their new company. "If the others agree with you then we would happily accept your offer."

"Alright then, I'll round them up and we will have a chat," Kristian stood immediately and called out to the others to gather together.

Whilst the thirty doctors gathered together for a discussion near the coach Bruce turned to Mateo and started up a rather awkward chat about what they would do to keep him entertained whilst Bruce worked. Although that didn't last long as Mateo merely smiled disarmingly and declared that if he could he would follow Bruce around. If not he would find some way of being helpful, such as fetching water, apparently the child was determined to follow in his adoptive father's footsteps.

Apparently not everyone was so easily convinced to accept the two of them as the private discussion between the thirty took a good ten minutes before Kristian even acknowledged them again. Even then the man only waved them over with a carefully neutral look on his face. The two were careful to ensure they had their three bags with them as they headed over to the bus.

"Everyone this is Bruce and Mateo, Bruce they want to ask you a few questions," the German explained.

"Alright. Erm hi everyone," Bruce turned nervously to the crowd. Mateo partially kid behind his leg and peaked out at the assembled doctors.

"I thought it was a bit irresponsible for a nine year old child to be out of mainstream education whilst you cavort around the globe," a rather prim and stern woman started without preamble.

"I'm ten," Mateo said indignantly before Bruce shushed him. It was a lingering reaction that Mateo had whenever someone miscalculated his age, when he was scrawny and malnourished it had happened a lot.

"My wife and I were separated and she got custody of Mateo. Unfortunately she died four years ago and when I heard I was fully prepared to settle down with Mateo so that he could receive the education he needed. However he enjoys the travelling, and I feel that he _is_ getting the education he needs," Bruce defended his doctored story.

"I can speak five languages as well as English. My maths is good enough for someone two years older than me and I know enough of nature to fend for myself," Mateo backed his father up.

"Boasting is not an attractive habit," Bruce admonished him.

"I don't mean to but she's questioning your skills as my Dad! You've done a brilliant job home schooling me," Mateo protested. But Bruce continued to give him a lightly reproving stare so Mateo sighed and turned to the woman. "Sorry I butted into your discussion."

"If you are going to help us you won't have time to teach young Mateo here during the day," another older gentleman with grey hair spoke out.

"Mateo often came with me when I treated patients, if there is the time and space he would like to come with me and learn more medical skills. However I realise we might be run off our feet so I can set him work to do whilst I am in the clinic. I was assuming there may be a lot of children around that he could either play with or join their school, once he has picked up the language," Bruce outlined their plan.

"We'll have to see once we are there, for now we should decide whether they come with us," Kristian interrupted, anxious as he was for them to get back on the road. "All in favour of them joining raise your hands."

Twenty of the thirty assembled medical professionals did as instructed. The stern lady was unsurprisingly not among them, as well as the greying short man.

"It's settled then, welcome to the group," Kristian beamed at them.

And before Bruce and Mateo could fully realise what was going on they were on the coach in the middle of the vehicle and were heading back towards the refugee camp. There were a few people who were eager to catch Bruce's attention and assess his knowledge, and Mateo was worried that he would end up being ignored the entire journey. However before he could consider whether he should attempt to listen in on the conversation his father was engaged in someone came and sat across the aisle from him.

"You seem to have a talent with languages there Mateo," said the man in a British accent.

Mateo carefully scrutinised the speaker before he replied. Whilst he knew that everyone on this bus were likely trustworthy he had only just met them, and only properly spoken with two of them. If they were going to be living with them then he would have to get over his trust issues anyway. But he hadn't heard another British accent since he had left his relatives, and Mateo was a bit nervous of the familiar sounding words.

The man was still waiting for an answer when Mateo returned his thoughts to the bus. He wasn't that tall, shorter than Bruce, with what had been dark hair that had started to go grey. He had kind blue eyes and a strong jaw, a very straight nose, and seemed to be quite friendly. So Mateo decided to trust him.

"Dad says I do, I pick them up quicker than he does," Mateo said cautiously.

"Well you see I happen to know some of the languages spoken in the area, if you want I can start teaching you them so you can communicate with the people we'll be working with?" the man offered.

"Yes please! Er what is your name?" Mateo asked.

"I'm John," John smiled.

"Nice to meet you John," Mateo said and shook the man's hand before awaiting his lesson.


	11. Chapter 11 - Innocent Intentions

**A/N: Hello once again! Well done to the majority of the reviews I read, you guessed correctly who I slipped in here. I will be slipping in odd references and nods to other fandoms, mostly for fun and to see who can spot them and how broad people's interests are. 99% of the ones I put in won't be of much use to progress the plot but I find them fun to add.**

 **Slight tangent to the story but I told a relative I write fanfiction! Am I the only person that keeps it quiet, a bit like a guilty secret? I'm happy posting these online as the chances of me meeting any of you is probably slimmer than me winning the lottery, but telling family is quite terrifying.**

 **Meh ah well, perhaps I might one day tell him. For now, thanks for every review/favourite/follow!**

* * *

 **Chapter Eleven – Innocent Intentions**

Although they had seen some of the conditions in the periphery of the refugee camp Bruce was still shocked as they parked and walked through the settlement. The shelters on the outside of the camp were made from tarpaulin and scraps of material thrown over rough wooden frames created from scavenged spare wood. The original camp had been formed from properly constructed huts or tents with regular water sources and toilets, but out on the periphery there were no such luxuries.

When the original Dadaab camp had been built they had set aside an area for the addition of a medical facility and that was where the Doctors Without Borders were heading, which involved a long walk from the edge of the camp with all their luggage. It didn't help that although they had rough directions to the building they had quickly gotten confused because the settlement grew and changed daily.

The feeling of confusion and disorganisation continued even after they had found where they were staying. The large shelter was as minimal as the pair had ever seen, with a bare concrete floor and breezeblock walls. There was no glass in the wooden frames, only slats that could be shut in case of a storm. The wood was slowly eroding, showing that dust storms were more of a risk than a downpour.

Setting up their beds and mosquito nets was easily done, the wooden beams running along the roof provided handy places to tie the nets from. The metal framed beds were reminiscent of military cots and were hardly luxuriant, but as least it was more comfortable than sleeping on the floor.

The mood was sombre as they quickly claimed their beds and dumped their possessions, but as they jumped straight into helping those doctors already there the newcomers were faced with just how enormous a task they faced. The arrival of thirty one fresh faces to combat the massive influx of refugees seemed to revitalise the original staff of the clinic, which was heartening to see. However soon everyone was too engrossed to think about more than the person needing attention in front of them.

When the camp had been formed almost twenty years previous the intended occupancy had been 90,000 but the civil unrest had meant that the number of people inhabiting the temporary structures had easily exceeded four times that amount.

Even by the end of the first day Bruce wanted to throw in the towel and head away from the camp for the second time. He had joined the others in helping to unpack the new medical equipment they had brought before diving in and treating patients. Except he had had the extremely stern woman shadowing him to ensure he didn't slip up.

They had clashed within the first five minutes due to differences in techniques; Bruce was used to diagnosing and treating patients with the cheapest over the counter medication in the world. In comparison the woman, whose name was Jane, seemed to stick more to the tradition by the book methods. She also questioned his 'hunches', and whilst they were just hunches without proof they were always right. Bruce couldn't exactly say that he had learnt the tell-tale scents of the common illnesses because that would lead to a very awkward conversation about the skills he picked up from harbouring the Other Guy.

So he bit his tongue and dealt with Jane constantly attempting to correct him whilst trying to overcome the language barrier as he treated people. He was relieved when the clinic closed at sunset as it gave him a chance to run away and find Mateo.

As expected the child was lying on his bed next to Bruce's, but unexpectedly he was reading a book that the man knew they didn't own.

"John lent it to me, it's his phrase book. Apparently some people here might speak Arabic but it would be good to try to learn Somali and perhaps Swahili. Depending on how long we are here I might try to learn all three languages. John knows Arabic and a decent amount of Somalia," Mateo explained.

"How do you like John? I think he's the only adult I've seen you talking to," Bruce asked almost worriedly.

"He's quite nice," Mateo said whilst he thought about the man. "He trained as an army doctor but was discharged when wounded in Afghanistan. Apparently he tried to live a normal life again but couldn't hack it so he came out here. I think something probably went wrong at home too, he seems sad and glad to be away from there. He's offered to help me when he can with learning the languages, and any studies I want that he can help in."

"If you can get the lessons then it'll be good for you to keep busy, and Arabic at least will probably come in handy in the future," Bruce said as he sat next to his son. "You don't mind coming here do you?"

"We can't get back to India so this is as good a place as any," Mateo said.

"That wasn't a straight answer," Bruce instantly spotted the evasion.

Carefully he pulled the book from his son's hands and rolled the boy over so that they could look each other in the eye.

" **It isn't the nicest place in the world, but we knew that before we came here,"** Mateo spoke reluctantly in their preferred language.

Bruce may have second guessed himself constantly about his parenting skills, and his wisdom in even taking in a child with the Other Guy lurking in the shadows. However he was proud that he had been successful in raising Mateo to be comfortable enough in their relationship that he was never afraid of telling the truth.

" **I would rather you be happy than for me to help here though,"** Bruce insisted, also swapping to Malayalam.

" **You know I love India, but we can't get back there. Here we have free food and lodgings, I can learn the language and be an interpreter for you, and you get to help out. We just have to keep an eye out,"** Mateo said.

" **If you ever want to leave then remember I would rather hear than you keep it silent,"** he reiterated rather redundantly.

" **Don't worry Dad, you know I don't keep secrets,"** Mateo smiled.

"Good, now come on I believe there is some kind of canteen or communal cooking going on nearby that we go to for food," Bruce scooped up the child. With the giggling ten year old set on his shoulder the American strode out of the doorway in search of their dinner.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

While Bruce settled into the routine of treating patients with the other adults Mateo found himself with copious amounts of time on his hands. For a while he learnt from John's book and mostly kept to the doctors' quarters, only venturing out into the street beyond and the clinic next door when he needed to. But after two weeks of studying the book cover to cover repeatedly and not wanting to read one of their old books, Mateo ventured outside into the camp.

As usual his presence garnered quite a lot of stares from the locals, he was a lone white child in the midst of a refugee camp. Whilst he was used to it Mateo wasn't exactly happy about the situation, but he was distracted enough by something he had noticed to really be agitated by the attention. His father had asked about nearby schools and had been told immediately that there was no way Mateo would get to join one. However Mateo could easily spot a handful of children on the road he was on, so there were likely hundreds not in school in the local area alone.

With nothing better to do Mateo sat himself down at the base of a long dead tree and waited, determined that he would test out his new language skills with some of the children. If they were brave enough to approach him that was.

It took about ten minutes for the first of the children to get within talking distance and Mateo was relieved to hear them speaking both the languages he expected. Both Arabic and Somali were taught within their native country as a way of aiding trade with countries to the north of Somalia, so it stood to reason that the children were taught both languages.

" **Hello,"** Mateo said tentatively.

" **You speak Arabic?"** one child piped up.

" **A bit, I am learning,"** the Banner child replied.

" **What are you doing here?"** a second child was bolstered by his companion's courage and joined the conversation.

" **My Dad is a doctor, I stay with him. But I'm bored of reading,"** Mateo said truthfully.

" **Then play with us!"** the second speaker offered.

Mateo needed no second invitation and was soon chasing after the other children with gay abandon. The variety of games they could play were rather limited as Mateo had no idea how to play the other children's games, and he hadn't picked up many on his travels. But they spent a few hours playing tag and hide and seek. After a while the children got tired and dragged Mateo off to sneak food and drink off of their parents.

So caught up was the child that Mateo didn't think about what he was doing as he joined them in sneaking past adults and then running off with the fruits of their thievery. The eight of them then found a deserted patch of ground to sit in and share their food and the jug of water. Mateo's grasp of the language had picked up as he sat amongst the others talking rapidly in Arabic and he realised that he was missing something big by not having friends.

He loved his father dearly and enjoyed the games they played when he wasn't working. Compared to his life with his relatives his adoptive dad was the most exciting person in the world, and Mateo never wanted to leave the man. However as he watched the boys around him with their private jokes and favourite games Mateo understood the benefit of having more than one best friend. And perhaps having a best friend his age, not just his parent.

It was only as the sun started to set that Mateo realised the time and hurriedly bid goodbye to his new acquaintances. Luckily he knew that Bruce wasn't due back for another twenty minutes so he even had time to get a little lost without worrying. Where the camps varied from shanty towns and favelas was that it was surprisingly open plan with decent gaps between tents, rather than being rammed together. This gave plenty of visibility that enabled Mateo to spot the clinic between the tents long before he got onto the actual street it was built on.

He was back once more on his bed and his heartbeat was at a level for a long time before Bruce appeared. Mateo knew his father worked hard to pull his weight with the group of doctors in an attempt to see every patient that made up the queue each morning. They never managed to reach the end of it, but their work was certainly helping. Although he was certain that it was only the fact that they doctors strictly observed a scheduled bedtime from ten to five that his father could keep going. At least his dad was too tired to have nightmares at the moment.

"Good day?" Mateo asked as Bruce sat down on his own cot.

"Well there were a lot of patients as usual, nothing seriously worrying although it seems another bought of typhoid might be sweeping the area," his dad replied wearily.

"Are there enough antibiotics to counteract that?" Mateo knew the illness from Bruce's lessons.

"Enough for the children but depending on the number that are affected we may have a problem with treating every adult," Bruce admitted.

"Hopefully it won't get that bad. Hey, I played with some of the local kids today!" and Mateo went into a long story of what he had learnt to say and the fun they had had running around. He left out the bit about the fruit, deciding that it hadn't been that entertaining and it was only a snack.

Bruce had been right by the typhoid outbreak and Mateo was soon given the briefing, along with every adult, about safety with food and water. Although he was a little too excited to really pay attention, he had had the vaccination in China and was much more interested with what he had been promised. John had listened to him the night before and had deemed him fluent enough in Arabic, and haltingly so in Somali, to act as a translator. So with an official job Mateo was allowed to help in the clinic to ease the work of translators they already had.

He knew they were being patronising and he wouldn't help much as he would only work with his dad. However Mateo was ecstatic to spend more time with his parent and learning new stuff. So soon he was sat on his own stall next to Bruce's treatment bed and waited patiently for their first patient of the day.

Although the language and settings were new Mateo quite quickly found the similarities in ailments between here and many of their old patients. There were definitely a lot more issues with malnourishment and the cases of typhoid, but Bruce was mostly given patients with the every day illnesses like coughs, pregnancy concerns, infected cuts and so on.

The patients seemed surprised at first to see Mateo sitting there but quite quickly he proved his usefulness in the system by cutting out the sometimes awkward miming Bruce had to deal with when giving medicine with instructions written in English. Having a child there sometimes made them awkward but often Mateo's grown up behaviour and innocent curiosity about their hairstyle or clothing or meaning of their name distracted them.

Mateo was so excited to be allowed to help and to get back to learning that he didn't really pay attention to how tired he was feeling in the mornings or at dinner time. He put the evening exhaustion and lack of appetite down to working through the day and ensured that Bruce didn't think anything was wrong. He wanted to help, and if his dad thought he was working too hard then he would make sure Mateo stopped helping so he wasn't worn out.

It was only a week later when he felt decidedly off that Mateo started to think that perhaps there was something more than just tiredness at play. He almost managed to pass it off as nothing, he hated a fuss being made of him, but Bruce saw right through him.

"Mateo you are as white as a sheet, what's wrong?" Bruce asked. Although his tone was concerned Mateo knew the underlying tones that meant he would not be able to deflect the question.

"I've been feeling a bit tired and not hungry the last week, and now I feel a bit… not good," Mateo didn't really know how to sum up the feeling.

"You're running a temperature," Bruce declared as he held his palm to the boy's forehead. "I'm going to ask to get you tested for the usual culprits. Which test would you be comfortable giving?"

"Urine or blood, I haven't needed to go for a while," Mateo admitted.

"Mateo you know the risks we face living here, why didn't you tell me sooner?" Bruce asked with a sigh.

"Sorry Dad," Mateo muttered in an almost whine. He hated disappointing his father, and added to feeling ill his emotions got the better of him.

"Hey, hey it's alright, I'm just worried about you. I don't want to see you ill," Bruce said as he scooped the child into a hug and wiped the tears from his cheeks.

"I know, but I don't want to disappoint you," he sniffled.

"We all make mistakes, and although this means you might take a little longer to get better you'll be alright," Bruce hugged and rocked his child until the tears and hiccupping had stopped.

Mateo felt even more tired once his little emotional bout finished, but he tried to disguise the yawn. Bruce didn't buy it though and he soon settled him down in his bed once more. "I'm going to go get the blood test kit, you stay here and try to rest okay?"

"Okay dad," Mateo mumbled as he curled up on his side.

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"You've started early," John noticed Bruce heading out of the clinic with something clenched securely in his hand.

"Mateo's not feeling brilliant, and apparently hasn't been for over a week. I need to check his blood for illnesses, I'll pay for the cost of the test and antibiotics," Bruce said shortly.

"I'm certain no one will begrudge you having them for free, they may not say it but I think quite a few people are enamoured with the boy. I assume he is up to date on all his shots?" the Brit matched paces with the American to accompany him to the communal hut.

"He should be, I made sure he had everything possibly useful. But then nothing is 100% fool proof," Bruce said reluctantly.

"If you want I can take the blood sample so you don't have to," John offered.

Bruce was about to take an indignant stance with the suggestion he wasn't up to scratch to take the blood sample, but then he realised the true intention behind the offer. He would probably hate causing his son the tiny amount of pain a blood test caused, so by allowing someone else to do it the procedure could be done quickly and without a guilty conscience. Any doctor here was more than proficient at doing such a quick procedure, but John seemed to truly like the child. As such he would definitely try to cause the least amount of pain as he took the sample.

"Thanks John," Bruce passed over the kit as they entered the room.

"I hear our little linguist is under the weather," John said as he took a seat on Bruce's bed. Due to the size of the room and the number of beds their cots had been pushed quite close together, and the proximity was good enough to provide a convenient spot to perch and conduct a blood test from.

Mateo knew the drill from watching countless others have blood samples taken, so he obediently extended his right arm and waited for the cold alcohol swab and the jab of the metal. Bruce sat by him and gently carded his hand through the boy's hair until the process was done.

"I'll get to testing this right away, hopefully I can get it done before the clinic opens," John said as he put all the used items into the plastic bag, whilst he kept the blood sample in his right hand.

Bruce flashed him a grateful smile but focussed on trying to get Mateo to sip some of their sterilised water. He also remembered some rehydration salts he had knocking around in his bag so before Mateo drank too much he added them.

"But that stuff tastes foul even if you are dehydrated," Mateo whined.

"I know but it can't hurt to try to drink some of it," Bruce nudged the water bottle back into his son's hands.

Although the child pulled a face he dutifully tried to choke down some of the water before giving up and curling into his blanket once more. Mateo seemed to be slightly feverish, in that he was boiling hot but seemed reluctant to let go of his blanket. Coupled with the tiredness, lack of appetite, constipation and apparently achy joints Bruce was pretty sure he knew what was wrong.

Even before John returned Bruce had scrounged together various things that could be useful to treat Mateo, and the immediate area around his and Bruce's bed was cluttered with a bowl of water and a washcloth, a sick bucket, drinking water, safe food, books, and Mateo's toy dog Bingo. Bruce himself had moved to sit on the edge of Mateo's bed with everything within easy reach. His back was against the wall headboard railings, his own pillow behind his back to try to reduce the discomfort of leaning on the metal frame. Mateo was curled up half on his lap and seemed relishing the warmth despite his sweat soaked fringe showing his real temperature. Bruce was humming a tune that seemed to soothe the child.

John smiled at the scene in front of him when he re-entered the dormitory room, it was obvious that whilst Bruce was not trying to make too much of a fuss he had failed to hide his concern. Mateo seemed to be relishing the attention though, despite his illness. It made him wonder, not for the first time, how the two ended up travelling together instead of settling down to a normal life. But then, considering his attempt to have a normal life in London he couldn't exactly preach the benefits of such a life.

"It's as we suspected, he's got typhoid. He isn't exhibiting the typical symptoms but it showed up in his blood works," John handed over the pack of antibiotics he had brought with him.

"We didn't catch it too late did we?" asked Bruce worriedly, although it wasn't likely to be fatal as Mateo was a healthy child there could be complications.

"I doubt it but keep an eye out for bruising or lumps on his stomach," the other doctor warned. "We may have to double the amount of antibiotics usually given to a child but there's no worry of there being any long term complications. He'll be in bed for a while longer than some but it won't be long before he is up and running again."


	12. Chapter 12 - Dream

**A/N: Hey again, thanks to everyone who has followed/favourited/reviewed since last time.**

 **So my muddled wanderings through random countries are coming to an end, some of you will be glad to know. I need to work on my patience with slow burning storylines I think, I just get bored and want to hop into the action! I'm proud of myself to have managed to drag out the bonding father/son chapters out for so long, although I think you can tell I had to struggle through the filler chapters to get here.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twelve – Dream**

As John had said, it took a while for the antibiotics to kick in and start combatting the infection. In the meantime Mateo's fever spiked and the child became slightly delirious, leading to a lot of senseless rambling that Bruce had to listen to while he mopped the child's brow. While a lot of the dreams and hallucinations seemed to be nonsensical but the Dursleys and their cruel treatment cropped up quite a lot. Bruce was glad that they were largely left alone in the day as he really didn't want to face explaining the entire Dursley debacle to a load of strangers.

Thankfully in the evenings and overnight Mateo was mostly quiet as he managed to sleep the night through quite often. Some of the other doctors were less than thrilled to share space with an infected person but Bruce's glares silenced the most vocal of them. As they assumed that all utensils Mateo used would be sterilised after the majority of the doctors were content to just give the area a wide berth. No one considered Bruce was sharing anything so they never asked questions, which helped the situation. As the Other Guy gave him natural immunity from all poisons, illnesses and diseases Bruce did indeed share water with the child with no worry. He had greater things on his mind than hiding the fact he couldn't get ill, Mateo's fever was spiking and he was battling to keep the child's temperature down.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Mateo was unaware of the unrest he was causing between his father and the others, lost as he was in his dreams and hallucinations.

 _He was walking through a field of wheat that almost came up to his shoulders, the ears were golden and swollen ready for harvest. The crop swayed gently in a breeze that Mateo couldn't feel and birds wheeled overhead on invisible thermals. Occasionally in amongst the wheat a red poppy could be seen tentatively poking its head out above the level of the crop. He was standing on a path that seemed to run unendingly on behind him, and disappeared into the haze in the distance caused by the heat shimmer above the crop._

 _Ahead of him the field sloped upwards gently to a tree that stood alone in the centre of the wheat, with the path that Mateo was walking along running up to it. The child didn't recognise the tree species but it was tall and its branches spread wide into the open space. Dark green lobed leaves covered every twig and a few light green oval nut-like-seeds were starting to form amongst them. The large branches of the tree cast plenty of shade onto the ground below. Coupled with the bright sun above Mateo was stopped from being able to see anything in the deep shadows under the tree._

 _Not being able to feel the wind around him or hear the birds above didn't unnerve the child, even though he knew it should. Unconsciously he started walking towards the tree and its shade where he knew he had to go. Although he couldn't feel anything around Mateo was aware of how tired and achy his body was, and the promise of cold shade and a place to rest was very tempting._

 _Eventually he climbed the low but long hill to the tree at the top and could make out two figures under the tree. But Mateo wasn't scared, much to his surprise, and he approached them calmly without haste._

 _One was a man and one was a woman, and whilst they looked nothing alike they both wore looks of loving pride on their faces. The woman was the shorter of the two, with beautiful red hair that fell silkily past her shoulders. Her green eyes looked familiar, like a less vibrant version of his own. She wore a dark blue dress that looked comfortable whilst being very professional looking._

 _The man was tall and thin, with a mop of messy black hair that showed signs of having been fought into order. The man's brown eyes were covered by thick glasses that sat easily on the man's nose. He was clean-shaven, showing a strong jaw and high cheek bones. To match his clean appearance he was wearing a white shirt under a red pullover jumper that looked smart._

" _Hello," he said to the pair, knowing that he was safe to talk with them._

" _Our darling, look how big you've grown," the woman said as she knelt down to be closer to his level._

" _I'm glad you avoided my horrible eyesight," the man said with a smile as he mimicked his wife._

" _D-Bruce paid to have it fixed," Mateo corrected his terminology, aware that his parents might not have been happy with him calling the man 'Dad' in front of them._

" _It's alright little one, you can call him Dad. We were very glad when Bruce took you in and chose to treat you as his child," Mateo's father said with an encouraging nod._

" _Am I dead like you now?" Mateo connected the dots and looked worriedly at them._

" _No not at all darling, you are only ill. However because you are unconscious and very unwell you are close to the veil, which allows us to come visit you. It might be the only time we can," his mother explained sadly._

 _She reached forward to caress his face and Mateo was amazed when he felt the ghost of sensation on his cheek. It became obvious then that he was a different state to them, and a small part of his soul yearned that they were the same so that he could properly hug them. But he leant into the phantom feeling and savoured the faint warmth, knowing it was the closest he would get to his parents ever again until he joined them for good._

" _I miss you," Mateo said honestly._

" _We miss you too little one, but we are glad you have Bruce looking after you," his father reached forward and placed a hand on his shoulder._

" _Why did you have to leave me? Why did I get stuck with the Dursleys?" Mateo asked unhappily._

" _Those are not questions for now, you will get your answers one day. We cannot stay for long, but we had to let you know that we love you and that we are proud of you," his mother interjected._

" _Bruce has our thanks too, he has done an amazing job of raising you into a handsome young man," his father added._

" _And you, my amazing darling, need to believe in yourself more," his mother nudged his chin so their green eyes locked. "You have so much potential and so much to give the world, you just need to open up and to grasp the opportunities. Playing with those kids is exactly what you need to do, take risks and face the world standing tall and proud. You have so much greatness within you, and there'll come a day when people will look up to you as a symbol of hope. I know when that time comes you will be a great leader."_

 _Mateo wasn't exactly sure what his mother was trying to accomplish with that pep talk but he smiled anyway. "I love you both."_

" _And we love you, never forget that," his father replied for the both of them. "As much as we have loved this opportunity you should be heading back to Bruce, he is quite worried about you."_

 _The adults stood once more with one hand around the other's waist. His father gestured back down the path and Mateo dutifully started to walk back down it again. When he was a few metres out of the shade of the tree he turned and waved back to his parents. He couldn't see much detail of them, shaded as they were by the tree still, but he thought he could see them raise a hand each to wave back. After that he faced down the path and trotted away from the tree, not turning back again._

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Bruce had been on the verge of panicking as Mateo's fever spiked and the child started to thrash violently. He did all he could to comfort the child, the cloth on his forehead barely had time to dry before Bruce was dipping it back into the bowl of water.

At first the child's mutterings were incoherent and random, but after a while Bruce was able to pick out actual words. His insides turned cold when he realised that his child was hallucinating about his biological parents, and was talking to them. It was heart wrenching to hear the boy ask why he had been left alone, and if it would have helped he would have hugged the boy tightly and never let go.

But instead he settled for quietly singing the song that Mateo had latched onto as his favourite lullaby. It wasn't a conventional one but Bruce had ended up singing the song to try to help the child calm down after waking from nightmares. He had first sung it in China and Mateo had immediately liked it, so it often worked for soothing the child during traumatic moments.

"May these words be the first to find your ears,  
The world is brighter than the sun, now that you're here.  
Though your eyes will need some time to adjust,  
To the overwhelming light surrounding us.

'Cause you are loved, you are loved more than you know.  
I hereby pledge all of my days to prove it so.  
Though your heart is far too young to realise,  
The unimaginable light you hold inside.

I'll give you everything I have,  
I'll teach you everything I know.  
I promise I'll do better.  
I will always hold you close,  
But I will learn to let you go.  
I promise, I'll do better.  
I will soften every edge,  
I'll hold the world to its best.  
And I'll do better.  
With every heartbeat I have left,  
I will defend your every breath,  
And I'll do better."

Very soon after Mateo's fever broke and the child started to sweat profusely. Bruce felt relieved enough to cry, instead he focussed on dribbling water down the child's throat and mopping his brow.

By the evening Mateo was a lot calmer and was resting peacefully for the first time in four days. The child had lost a bit of weight due to the illness and having not eaten properly for the week before he was struck down. Bruce was determined that he would ensure that Mateo ate as much as he could once he was aware to combat the loss.

Bruce was certain that he had a gap in which he could go stretch his legs and Mateo wouldn't be likely to need him, so he carefully extracted himself from under the child and stood. The smell of cooking had been wafting through the building for a while so he was pretty certain that there would be freshly cooked food available. He quickly but carefully sterilised his hands, he couldn't get ill but he could pass the infection on, before heading out.

His keen sense of smell proved him right and the dishes were just being set out for the doctors to help themselves. Not many had gathered quite yet, apparently many of them had been tackling the numerous children with typhoid and often spent extra time in the clinic with the last patients. So Bruce managed to claim his share of the food and an often empty corner to eat in.

However his plan of staying out of the way failed miserably as people spotted him as soon as they entered the courtyard. From the fact alone that he wasn't merely collecting food and leaving again told the others that Mateo had improved. But with the lack of other new news Bruce found himself cornered by five other doctors who wanted to talk to him.

The questions were inane and repetitive, Mateo may not have showed the typical symptoms like every other typhoid patient they had but he did respond to antibiotics the same. But Bruce politely responded to their questions until he felt he had hung around for long enough to politely excuse himself.

Mateo was where he had left him, sleeping peacefully. In all honesty Bruce knew he could have hung around with the others for longer, but he just couldn't bring himself to. The two of them had been on their own for years, only being forced to talk to patients in order to treat them. Having to live with thirty other people in close proximity with no privacy or peace was starting to grate on Bruce's nerves.

He was far from losing control on the Other Guy, but Bruce knew that it had been a mistake when he had accepted the offer to join the doctors. Mateo's illness was another testimony to how much of a mistake the decision had been. The child had never been severely ill in all their travels before and Bruce felt incredibly guilty that he had brought them to a situation that had gotten through the child's defences.

"You're thinking too much again," a hoarse whisper broke through Bruce's thoughts.

"Hey there," Bruce smiled at the weary green eyes that were looking at him. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I tried to run to the top of the tallest pyramid and then jumped off," Mateo groaned and wetted his lips. "And it tastes like something crawled into my mouth to die."

"Well that second one we can fix easily now, and with plenty of sleep you'll be back up and running in no time," Bruce's relieved smile failed to fade as he bustled about making the child comfortable.

Over the next few days Bruce never brought up any of the ramblings that he had heard whilst Mateo had been ill, the child didn't seem to remember anything. At least he was much more preoccupied with trying to wheedle his way out of bed once he was no longer showing signs of illness. However Bruce stuck to his guns and managed to keep Mateo in his bed by constantly engaging his mind in schooling and stories.

After three days of bed rest Bruce allowed Mateo to get up and wander around the dormitory and to the private courtyard they ate their meals in. At first Mateo muttered about the limits set to his freedom, but when he could only make it to the courtyard he realised how realistic Bruce was being and quickly fell silent.

However he was perfectly well enough a week later to join everyone in the courtyard for dinner, and Mateo was glad to return to normal life. Most people seemed almost indifferent to his reappearance beyond being glad that he was better. However John made the effort to find him and sat by the child whilst they ate. Mateo immediately launched straight into learning more words and Bruce was left smiling at his son's antics as he listened in on the lesson.

Although some people had solar chargers for their satellite phones there was very little contact with the wider world. Most calls were to the organisation in charge, or hospitals nearby for supplies or assistance. So it wasn't uncommon for there to be group announcements if there was news that everyone would be interested in.

"Guys, I had a call from back home," Kristian called as he arrived in the courtyard.

The tone of his voice caught their attention and an uneasy silence fell before low chatter sprung up once more. Although numerous people started muttering worriedly it was the youngest doctor in the group, a twenty five year old English woman, that spoke up first. "Has something happened?"

"There's flooding in Nepal but nothing severe has happened to any of our families. What I was meaning to say was a reporter is likely to come and spend time with us to raise awareness of the situation here," Kristian explained quickly.

It sounded like most people were agreeable with that idea and those that had tensed immediately relaxed. Apparently it was a commonly held opinion that it was frustrating for people back home to be unaware and uncaring of the suffering going on elsewhere. So an in depth newspaper report, or perhaps documentary, would be exactly what was needed to raise concerns.

Bruce was careful to hide the sudden spike of worry he felt and instead of acting he turned to the other doctors nearby and joined in their conversation. However he really just wanted to grab Mateo and their belongings and head off right now.

"Bruce, can I have a word?" Kristian's voice called from the direction of the dormitory.

The American had to force his pulse to slow down as he turned to head to the German. Although he was in control it wouldn't do for the other man to say something wrong and run the risk of the Other Guy coming out. Kristian was leaning against the doorframe and Bruce wandered past him so that their conversation would be slightly more private.

"It always surprises me how little media coverage there can be on events like this," Kristian started neutrally.

"Tales of refugees and poverty don't sit well with the capitalist idea that the world is improving," Bruce said cynically. But then he took a breath and attempted to talk in his normal mild tone, "was there a particular reason you asked to talk to me?"

"As the flooding and landslides in Nepal are rather severe the organisation are sending relief workers and aid to the country," Kristian said.

"And?" Bruce said once it seemed that the man wouldn't continue.

"There is a relief flight heading into Nairobi to drop supplies for us before heading to Nepal. If you want to leave then there are seats available, and you are not obliged to help in Nepal once you land," Kristian expanded.

"If you can organise for us to fly over there it would be amazing, I really don't think Mateo is enjoying it here," Bruce said, omitting his own discomfort.

"From his stories of what you have done in India then it would be a shame from keeping you there, we might be busy here but we will survive without your and your little interpreters help," Kristian said reassuringly. "Besides I know you will want to be away from the reporter when they are here. Hiding for a month won't exactly be productive."

"Why would I want to hide from a reporter?" Bruce tried to remain calm as he replied.

"I have a friend who lived in Harlem, I ended up watching a lot of TV when I was trying to find out if she was alright," Kristian said pointedly.

"And you haven't told anyone about me?" as he asked the question Bruce started to panic a bit.

"Of course not, to start with who would believe me that a gentle mannered man with a sweet child is secretly a rampaging goliath? Secondly it is obvious you are working to erase the guilt you feel for what has happened. Who am I to stop you? However I don't know if the person coming would feel the same. Which is why I am giving you this opportunity to get out of here," the German said with a reassuring smile.

"Thank you Kristian, for everything. I'll go tell Mateo the news," Bruce didn't waste any more time and instead hurried off to find his child.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

With the events in Nepal progressing quickly Mateo and Bruce barely had a day to get used to the idea they were going to be leaving. Although everyone had known from the beginning that they were eventually roaming to India some seemed a bit disapproving of their departure. But Bruce ignored them in favour of saying goodbye to those that they considered friends.

Mateo of course was most upset about leaving John as the man seemed to have left an impact on the child. The linguist had tried to ensure the boy was entertained over the first two weeks he was around, and had been one of the most genuine people asking about his health the week he was ill. Mateo couldn't exactly promise to keep in touch but Bruce spotted him tucking a scrap of paper into his sketch pad at one point.

Two mornings after the announcement Bruce and Mateo rose at the same time as the others, but were forced to rush to get their morning rituals done. A very battered van had been requisitioned for the purpose of taking the pair to the airport, and the driver spoke no English. However with Mateo's linguist skills they were able to roughly carry a conversation.

The roads were incredibly bumpy and the van seemed to have never heard of suspension, so they were rather sore when they stopped after three hours for a rest. Bruce moved like a man twice his age as he staggered out of the van to stretch his legs. Mateo merely skipped around with the abundance of energy children always seemed to have, and was enjoying exploring the area they had stopped in. It could hardly be described as more than merely a layby by the road, and the drought had turned the majority of the countryside to a brown wasteland. However Mateo somehow found things to entertain himself with until their driver whistled for them to be heading out once more.

After six hours of travelling Bruce practically fell out of the van onto the tarmac at the airport. They had ten minutes to get to the plane so Bruce quickly grabbed their bags and walked quickly in the direction of the entry gate. Kristian had given them a pass that Bruce waved at the guards before striding through with Mateo trotting at his heels.

A huge cargo jet was parked at the edge of the runway, it's pale paintwork made it contrast to the airport quite severely. There were a few large crates standing to the side but it looked like the majority of the hold was still packed with matching crates.

"Bruce and Mateo Johnson?" a man with a fluorescent jacket shouted above the sounds of machinery and engines.

"That's us," Bruce shouted back.

"You're just in time, we'll be taxiing out in five minutes. I'll show you to your seats," the man started walking without waiting to see if he was being followed. "It's not going to be a glamorous ride but we'll be there in ten hours."

"We'll manage, it would take a lot longer to do the journey by water," Bruce replied.

Their seats were indeed far from glamorous, they were metal bucket seats that were built into the sides of the cargo hold. Bruce quickly grabbed his blanket and threw it onto their seats to attempt to make them comfier before he and his son sat down. The airman showed them both how to clip their harnesses on before he walked off again to finish the pre-flight preparations.

"This isn't going to be pleasant, is it?" Mateo showed his perceptiveness.

"It might be a little rough and a bit boring but it can't be worse than sailing, can it?" Bruce pointed out.

Mateo shivered at the thought and just sat in his seat, swinging his legs nervously, waiting for the plane to take off.

When it did just under five minutes later Bruce offered an arm for Mateo to grasp as the rumbling increased in volume as they thundered down the runway. At first the child was rather terrified of being in the plane in the air but once they levelled out and the juddering faded away he settled down once more.

As there was little to look at or do they stayed in their seats for the duration of the flight, both with books in their hands as distractions. They were fortunate in that they did not encounter any turbulence and Mateo soon forgot that they were thousands of feet above the ground. To him it was no different to sitting in a large tin can for a long time.

The landing in Nepal was a bit rougher than take-off had been. The storms that had caused the flooding and landslides had diminished to persistent rain by the time they arrived. So the landing was wet and a bit jittery, but Mate bravely stayed calm.

The same airman with the fluorescent jacket that had seen them to their seats came to open the ramp up and allowed them to exit the plane. Bruce thanked him politely for his assistance before he and his son headed out onto the tarmac and away from the plane.

Neither said it, but as they travelled westward away from the airport in the back of a farm cart they both felt relieved to be back amongst the faintly familiar settings. Mateo was glad to be back in a region that he was familiar with and understood better, whilst Bruce was happy to be alone with his child once more.

 **A/N: The tree I was trying to describe in the dream scene was an English Oak (** _ **Quercus robur**_ **), they are quite common as solitary trees in the fields near where I live. My Dad is a farmer so I learnt tree names quite early, but I guess not everyone would. So with that assumption Mateo probably didn't know the plant before he left England.**

 **Also the lyrics are by Sleeping At Last from their song 'Light'. I'm not sure how popular they are globally but I found their songs immensely helpful during my exams – I get stress caused insomnia and their songs helped shut my brain up enough to sleep a couple of times. The lyrics also seemed to fit the relationship between our two characters really well.**


	13. Chapter 13 - Romanoff

**A/N: Hello everyone, thanks again for every review/favourite/follow, I truly am grateful for the positive feedback. I've loved reading the reviews and I've laughed at the ingenuity of some of you with your names, there are some amazing ones out there! I've ended up changing my name, it still isn't that imaginative compared to some I like it more.**

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 **Chapter Thirteen – Romanoff**

After their trip to Africa Mateo had developed a greater interest in the fauna so Bruce led them to a place he knew the child would enjoy. So once they left Nepal they train jumped and hitch hiked across India to the destination Bruce had in mind; Gujarat and the last stronghold of Asiatic Lions. Although not as large as African lions Mateo found them fascinating and they spent at least a week tracking them with a guide.

After the small detour and almost holiday like stop they headed to Calcutta to see whether they could be useful. Bruce was still a little wary that they could have been followed from Nepal and so had planned escape routes. Should they find themselves needing to leave quickly they would have the option to head south through India or to flee across the nearby borders to Bangladesh. If the situation was really dire then there was also Burma as an option to shake off any determined tail.

The city of Calcutta was over twice the size of Kochi, which was to be expected seeing as it was the capitol of West Bengal. There were also a lot more old and grand architectural structures that they spotted as they travelled through the city, testimonies to the cities long history. Depending on where in the city they ended up staying, and how well they did for money, Bruce promised that they could maybe visit the landmarks at some point.

But with every growing city there were areas that were less savoury, pockets of underdevelopment and neighbourhoods of cheaper housing. It was as the pair travelled through one such area that Bruce noticed the number of unwell looking people. The narrow streets and constant movement of people and machinery made the air thick and less than ideal for respiratory problems.

Mateo had picked up on the thoughts that were passing through his father's head so he could easily reply when Bruce asked if they wanted to stay. With a reply to the affirmative they followed their usual pattern of moving into an area. For Mateo this meant learning the language as quick as he could, while Bruce organised finding a house and food.

They ended up managing to claim a flat in a block of buildings near the edge of the main trade section of the neighbourhood. Bruce would have preferred a house right on the outskirts of the city altogether just in case, but the Other Guy was content for now. Being back amongst the familiar also meant that Bruce was relatively sure that there would be no surprises that could unleash his other half, so he agreed to take the property.

At the moment the flat contained two beds, a table and a some wooden chairs. It was sparse and far from personal but they agreed it would do for now. So whilst Bruce went out to pawn their old clothes and buy food Mateo decided to go out and get a feel for the area.

Since Africa Mateo had come out of his shell a little more and was willing to explore a little on his own. He also had an excellent sense of direction and never became lost which helped Bruce's decision to allow his son to explore on his own. Mateo was well aware of what to keep an eye out for in terms of dangers, and his rough clothes meant that he ran no risk of being targeted by pickpockets. They would be disappointed anyway, the child only carried enough to buy a drink or some food, the rest of their money was hidden in a secret compartment of the medical bag Bruce carried. And that never left his side, and anyone who attacked him would be sorry for their mistake.

After a couple of hours wandering and listening intently to the chatter of the locals Mateo thought it would be prudent to return home. Bruce rarely took long to complete his tasks and would likely be back and worrying by then. It would also be a good exercise in navigating the streets again after only one pass through them.

"We are lucky that we arrived when we did," Mateo said as soon as he arrived home.

"How so?" Bruce asked.

"There's an illness going around at the moment, it doesn't sound major but the fact that unrelated houses are getting sick suggests it could be water borne," Mateo said as he flopped in a seat.

"Have you learnt Bengali already?" Bruce asked with raised eyebrows.

"Not much, but enough to ask some questions and understand the gestures. Seems there is a fever, vomiting and diarrhoea that lasts a week or so. Deaths aren't that common but probably the young and old get dehydrated quickly, I think we should stock up on rehydration salts and start boiling everything we eat," Mateo said casually.

"It's a good thing we can cook for ourselves then, I don't fancy eating out just in case we aren't used to the germs around here," Bruce wrinkled his nose at the thought.

"I'm finding the closest shop that sells hand gel and I'm using it every time I touch a door," Mateo joked, the incident in Africa was still too fresh in his mind for him to relax about germs. "What's for dinner?"

"Well we are back in India so I thought we would have fish and chips," Bruce suggested.

"Good one Dad," Mateo rolled his eyes. "I'll get to peeling the vegetables."

It turned out that Mateo was right and a small bout of typhoid was occurring, so Bruce and Mateo were busy helping treat it as soon as they were settled. Yet another benefit of having the Other Guy was that Bruce was immune to any kind of human illness so he happily spent hours in infected houses with concerned family members. Mateo had been slightly worried about contracting the illness again, but was careful to avoid eating or drinking anything from the infected houses.

However Mateo didn't have to worry overly over getting sick as spent more of his time running from shops to Bruce fetching medicinal items than spending time in the room with patients. He also started running errands for the families, such as buying food, even though he would easily be able to help treat these people. It seemed that illnesses were common in the area and it was common practice for the affected family to isolate themselves to avoid it spreading. It was pointless if it was water borne but Mateo admitted that it was the thought that counted. So he offered his services to the family by buying any supplies they may be running low on when the two males visited.

In comparison to some cities the pair had lived in Calcutta seemed to regularly experience illness, and they were rarely not being called upon. Over the few months that they lived in the city Bruce made quite a few friends in the neighbourhood, but also a few enemies. A couple of local doctors had their noses put out of joint by Bruce whose methods often produced better results and his patients recovered a lot quicker. One got rather angry and offensive towards Bruce, but the American was now able to merely smile and walk away without fearing the appearance of the Other Guy.

The Other Guy certainly wasn't dormant now, but they had seemed to come a very loose truce. Bruce could at least be sure that a small argument or relatively minor injury would not set the wheels in motion for his other half to appear.

Mateo had just finished buying a wide selection of vegetables and pulses for making healthy broths and was on his way back to the last house they were working at for the night. At times it became infuriating that the city was so badly impacted by problems that could be fixed simply by building efficient water and sewage pipes, but Mateo was not naïve enough to assume that such a thing was as easy to do as to think about. Thanks to Bruce's meticulous habits the two of them had avoided every illness that had passed through the neighbourhood, and Mateo felt a bit guilty at times when he saw nearby kids being struck by one illness or another.

Pushing the depressing thought from his head Mateo trotted up the stairs to the flat they were working at and knocked on the door respectfully before poking his head around the door.

" **I have your food for you ma'am,"** Mateo said respectfully.

" **Vishnu smile on you for your kindness,"** the wife of the family said in relief as she took the package off of Mateo.

" **Where is my father? I did not think he would be done yet,"** Mateo looked around the small flat and could not see Bruce.

" **A girl called him away, she seemed rather upset about her parents. Your father said for you to go home and he would see you later,"** the woman relayed.

As there was nothing more Mateo could do he bowed his head respectfully and left, easily winding his way home to wait for Bruce. As they had eaten a large lunch Mateo settled for purchasing some fruit from a street vendor and listened to the chatter of conversations as he leant against a wall to eat the banana and orange. When he got home he sat at the table and waited his father's return, and listened to the faint sound of chatter and music that drifted through the shuttered windows.

Mateo had fallen asleep, his head propped on his arms on the table, waiting for his father when the door was opened rather violently. In a flash Mateo was on his feet and in a crouch, still half awake and blinded by the lightbulb being flicked on. Bruce was largely a pacifist but he had ensured that Mateo knew the basics of how to defend himself from attack. It had never come in useful but the violent waking he had then made him react in defence. He only relaxed when he realised that it was his father that had entered, and when he finally could focus on his watch he saw it was eleven at night.

"Sorry Mateo, I thought you would be in bed," Bruce apologised.

"It's alright. Are you okay? You seem a little flustered," Mateo asked, fully prepared to hug his father if it was needed.

"It seems that no matter how careful we were someone has been following us," Bruce said in an annoyed tone.

Mateo stayed still for a few seconds before heading towards the bedroom. "Where are we thinking of going next? I hear the Philippines might be an interesting place to see, they apparently have an interesting culture. Burma might be an idea as no sane person would follow us there, but then we would have to be extremely careful."

"We aren't running," Bruce called.

Mateo returned to the living room still clutching his bag of clothes. "But you said we have been followed, shouldn't we be going?"

"We aren't running, because apparently it was the good guys tailing us," Bruce explained.

"Well you could have said that at the start," Mateo sighed in annoyance. "What do they want?"

"Apparently something important has been stolen by some mythical being and they need me to help track it down if I can. Seeing as I have the best knowledge of gamma radiation they decided the benefits outweigh the risks," Bruce said grimly.

"Mythical being? Really? It is such a pathetic story I almost want to believe them," Mateo looked sceptical.

"Either way, they know we are here and I highly doubt we can outrun them this time. They already have a plane waiting for us and 4x4s ready for a chase so our options are limited," Bruce sighed this time.

"What nation is it? It's got to be America, England or Russia."

"America."

"Well, I've always wanted a genuine cheeseburger," Mateo joked.

"Grab your stuff then and we can get one once this is all sorted," Bruce smiled and also started packing.

Mateo was already packed by the time Bruce had finished gathering the few books and photos dotted around the apartment, so the boy decided to make himself useful. They had enough food for a few days in the kitchen, so he gathered it all into a couple of plastic bags and dropped them off to their right hand neighbours who had just had their third child and were struggling a bit.

As he was returning to the house Mateo spotted a woman hiding in the shadows across the street. Although she was very good at melting into the darkness around her Mateo felt that she was deliberately not concealing herself as well as she could. The youth wasn't sure whether that was deliberate to give them the idea of control or so they knew they couldn't run. Either way he waved at her and smiled at her surprised look before he shut the door again. "Ready to go yet Dad?"

"I think I have everything," Bruce said as he came into the living room, rucksack on his back. He had changed into some slightly less worn and more formal clothes, which consisted of a purple shirt he was fond of with less worn trousers. He still wore the same jacket as usual, but the pockets were empty of medical clutter he often accumulated throughout the day.

"Glasses, iPod, books, money?" Mateo asked innocently.

"Yes to all four. I don't know how long we will be so are you sure you have everything you brought with you?" Bruce shot back.

"You know I only have like four sets of clothes, I'm all good," Mateo gestured to his rather bulging rucksack. He may not have many clothes but Mateo had plenty of sketchbooks and reading material that he carried around.

"Then let us go find Agent Romanoff and be on the road," Bruce opened the door.

"She's across the street between two houses three down from us, she has quite a pretty dress on. Sticks out like a sore thumb though," Mateo remarked.

"As much as she sticks out I am pretty sure she is merely downplaying her talents to avoid intimidating us. I'd rather you do not insult her as soon as you meet her," Bruce said sternly.

"You know me father," Mateo said as he led the way to the woman.

"Doctor Banner," the woman said politely before looking at the boy questioningly.

" **May Vishnu smile upon our meeting,"** Mateo said politely with a low bow.

"Mateo," Bruce said in an exasperated tone.

" **You wished me to be courteous,"** Mateo smiled innocently before reverting back to English. "Sorry, old habits die hard. Mateo Banner at your service."

"I had heard you had adopted a child, but it is still surprising," the redhead said.

"There is no reason Bruce would not make a good father, I have turned out perfectly sane and happy. I imagine there are much more careless and ill-suited parents out there in the western world that are freely able to adopt children," Mateo said defensively.

" **You know perhaps you should let me do the talking,"** Bruce said quickly in Malayalam, being more comfortable with the language than Bengali.

" **Yes Dad,"** Mateo replied before falling silent.

"Perhaps we should be heading to the plane?" Bruce said.

The Redhead nodded and walked off silently, leaving the pair to catch up.

" **Any chance of learning her name at some point in this journey?"** Mateo asked.

" **Her name is apparently Natasha Romanoff, agent of SHIELD and previously a freelance assassin from Russia,"** Bruce replied to his son.

" **Noted, I am definitely not getting on her bad side,"** Mateo almost gulped.

"How many languages do you two speak? I'd say you've used three since I've met you," Natasha eventually spoke up, curious about the pair despite herself.

"I speak about four fluently and a smattering of about five more, but Mateo is fluent in at least seven. He picks them up incredibly easily which has been invaluable," Bruce said proudly.

"Only because you have given me the opportunities I needed to learn them," Mateo replied.

Bruce smiled at his son's modesty before the trio fell silent. In no time they got into a jeep and their speed increased until they were zipping along the larger roads to the airport.

The two males knew each other well enough to read the nervous posture that the other held themselves in, and they sat as close as possible to give each other support. Bruce was going against the instincts that had kept him alive and free for the last fifteen years by allowing a large corporation to take him anywhere. Although SHIELD purported to be the good guys, Bruce couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss, so he stayed alert and vowed to keep Mateo close. The Other Guy had proven that he too was protective of the child, so Bruce had no fear over Mateo being harmed if this was a trap.

Mateo was worried for his father, that this could be a trap and that they would be separated. These people were official and attached to the government somehow, if they knew he had run away they may take him back to his relatives. As much as he wanted to run though they couldn't, apparently these people had been tailing them for a while, they could force them to help them, and that would likely be less pleasant.

Natasha watched the pair as they sat side by side and holding hands. It was clear that the two were fiercely protective and loyal to each other, and that they both were heading far out of their comfort zone. If Natasha didn't know Bruce's history she would almost be amused by the American's reaction to going home. The child that went by Mateo was a complete enigma and so she had no idea why the child was nervous.

Half an hour later they reached the small air strip that the plane was parked at and the three clambered out. The ride had been a lot smoother than their last stint in a vehicle, that being back in Africa, so the two fugitives could move a lot easier. Bruce and Mateo hefted their bags and headed out towards the small black shape.

"That doesn't look much like a plane," Mateo said nervously.

The squat black vehicle had two blades set in the middle of each wing and a small body. It looked delicate and easily broken, and very cramped.

"This is a jet, special SHIELD design and it will get us there much quicker," Natasha explained.

"I don't think I am going to enjoy this," Mateo muttered to Bruce, who patted him on the shoulder in a supporting manner. The child may have ridden in a cargo jet before but the sheer size of it had seemingly been reassuring to Mateo. This was a lot smaller and seemed more delicate in his eyes, and Mateo was not hiding his worry or distrust of the craft as they climbed aboard.

"You can stash your bags here," Natasha showed them how to tie their bags down under their seats before moving forward and taking the spare seat up front.

Mateo glanced fearfully at the militaristic interior of the jet, and Bruce sighed. The adult nudged his son to a seat and buckled him in before doing the same to himself right next to Mateo. As soon as he was settled Mateo had moved his father's arm to be around his shoulders and burrowed his face into Bruce's chest. Bruce tried to comfort the child by rubbing his hair while breathing deeply to fight the rising sense of panic he was feeling.

"We'll be there in nine hours," Natasha said.

Mateo squeaked in protest, but before he could so much as move from his seat the back door clanged shut and the jet started moving into position to start taking off. The initial jolting of the acceleration and take off had Mateo screwing his eyes shut, but once the jet had levelled off and was stable once more he quietened down a bit.

Bruce just hoped that there would be little turbulence as they travelled, although Mateo wasn't worried about flight from their other journey turbulence could unnerve him. Once Natasha said they could take their belts off Bruce rummaged in their bags for a blanket and made sure Mateo was comfortable. The metal craft was slightly cold, and whilst Bruce had his jacket Mateo was just in his shirt. He made the executive decision to bed the child down so that he would hopefully sleep through the majority of the journey. Mateo was great in that he could easily find entertainment so he wouldn't be disruptive, it was just that Bruce didn't want him to keep worrying.

"But I want to see outside," Mateo grumbled as Bruce threw the blanket around his shoulders.

"Trust me, the sky is dark and all you will see is clouds and possibly some stars. You are missing nothing except a good night's sleep. Tomorrow we will be in America and I am sure you will want to explore it thoroughly whilst we are there," Bruce pointed out.

Mateo thought about that for a few moments before sighing in defeat and curling up. With his head on Bruce's leg and his body kept warm by the blanket Mateo was reasonably comfy. Bruce looked at the harnesses and extended some straps and tied Mateo down so that he couldn't accidentally roll off the narrow seats. Mateo flashed him a grateful smile and tried to sleep.

"He's a sweet kid," Natasha left the cockpit an hour later and sat opposite Bruce.

"I'm lucky to have him, he has literally saved my life," Bruce said honestly.

"How exactly did you manage to adopt a kid, especially one of English descent?"

"It's not an official adoption; I found him on the streets and took him in. No one came looking for him so he ended up travelling with me," Bruce said honestly.

"And you are certain that was the best choice for him?" Natasha asked gently but bluntly.

"I offered to take him to the authorities, but he wanted to stay with me even though he knew exactly what he was getting himself into. By the sounds of it his home life was rather terrible before he met me so I suppose anything was better than before," Bruce said defensively.

"Just as long as he is with you of his own volition, I know children who have not had that luxury," Natasha said emotionlessly.

"I have asked him hundreds of times if he would prefer to find another family but he refuses to leave," Bruce said in reply.

Natasha fell silent, but Bruce thought he saw a look of satisfaction in her eye as she handed over a pile of files. He had no idea what kind of small talk a SHIELD agent would be interested in but the woman got up and returned to her original seat once Bruce accepted the files. Soon the jet was filled with only the sounds of the engine as the two agents focussed on flying while Bruce read through the files and Mateo slept on his leg.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Natasha Romanoff, better known as the Black Widow, sat up front of the quinjet and tried to make sense of what she had learnt over the last few hours. She had come into this mission with little more than a file and a destination. Normally that was enough for the Black Widow complete even the most difficult mission, there was very little that she couldn't achieve.

And again she had been successful in her mission, the Hulk and Bruce Banner had been recruited into the Avengers Initiative. She found it almost insulting that SHIELD had sent a backup team to contain the Hulk and ensure his cooperation if she had failed. But from the little she knew Natasha knew that the act hadn't been an insult to her skill, the Hulk was wild and unpredictable, his human side wasn't much better.

Or at least that had been suggested by the file SHIELD had given her, and that she had extensively studied before heading to India. The last video footage of Bruce Banner had shown a shifty and paranoid man, constantly fidgeting and checking over his shoulder for a tail. It wasn't hard to see that from the film of the debacle in Harlem that the Hulk would not listen to reason and could not be controlled. For this reason Natasha doubted the wisdom in bringing the beast into the already chaotic situation, however she knew that Banner could be useful. She needed him to succeed to retrieve Barton, so she had vowed before leaving America that she would ensure he kept his cool and would finish his job.

However very little of what Natasha had prepared for had materialised. Sure, Bruce had rather cruelly tricked her to see her true opinion of him, which had resulted in her pulling her gun from under the table and aiming to kill. He had been nervous and shifty but a lot more composed and rational than Natasha had expected of a fugitive harbouring an extremely dark and violent side.

The fact that he had been reasonably easy to reason with and get him on board the idea also surprised Nat, she had been expecting to have to seriously attempt to manipulate him.

But the biggest surprise of all, one that almost had Natasha showing her emotions openly, was the confirmation that he had a child with him. As she needed full clearance to the file she had seen the almost afterthought like note that stated the possibility of a child presence. Seeing a note on a piece of paper was massively different to seeing the living breathing being in front of her though.

This 'Mateo Banner' looked surprisingly similar to Bruce, they shared the same black hair and mild look that permanently graced their features. Mateo didn't look like he would be the tallest man, nor the physically strongest, like his adoptive parent.

The child was polite and obviously loved his father enough to obey his requests. Although such loyalty could be obtained through fear Bruce certainly didn't seem like the kind of person to stoop to such low levels as to physically abuse a child. Despite the obvious worry the child was exhibiting he had followed his father dutifully and Natasha was immensely relieved that the child merely went to sleep on the quinjet. She had not had much interaction with children and had no idea how she would have coped on the long flight home with one constantly chattering or whining.

Natasha took stock of what she had learned so far: her opinions of both Bruce Banner and his son had been wrong. She just fervently hoped that her view of the Hulk was wrong too.

 **A/N: I realise that Calcutta is now called Kolkata, but in the film it is referred to with its old name so I am sticking with the same.**


	14. Chapter 14 - SHIELD

**A/N: Thanks again to everyone who reviews or follows/favourites, I'm enjoying the numbers rack up! I'm not entirely sure whether there is a standard protocol for replying to reviews, a lot of people have theories and such. Whilst I enjoy guesses I am not sure if I should confirm or deny them, would people prefer that or for me to stay silent?**

 **Monday's update may occur in the late evening (UK time) as my sister and I are taking my niece and nephew out for the day. I'll definitely try to ensure that the chapter is ready for when I get back, but I've had an idea so I'm actually still writing it!**

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 **Chapter Fourteen –SHIELD**

Mateo awoke an hour before the assassin had said they should arrive at their destination. Natasha had been rather secretive as to where exactly they were heading so Bruce wasn't sure what to expect when they got there. All he knew for certain was that it was in America and the place would undoubtedly be crawling with many armed guards. So whilst he could he revelled in the calm and tried to create a relaxed bubble in his mind so the Other Guy wouldn't become aggravated by said guards. It wasn't anything that he had seriously contemplated before but he would be interested to see America again.

In comparison Mateo's curious nature had him becoming excited to see anything new despite their fears. He was not naïve enough to be unaware of the tensions and worries that would plague them whilst being with the military, he didn't much like guns either. However to be on the side of the soldiers could only help in the situation he hoped, they wouldn't want to fire on their own guest surely?

Bruce noticed how still and quiet Mateo had become, so he quickly rummaged in his bag and produced an orange and an apple for the child to eat. It was a survival instinct that Mateo had never fully shrugged off, one of many, and Bruce knew that Mateo going quiet was a sign of his hunger and attempt to conserve energy. Mateo flashed him a quick grin before falling on the food. Natasha noticed the smell of orange and also produced some breakfast bars and bottles of water for them.

They ended up being ahead of schedule thanks to the calm weather and they all buckled their harnesses twenty minutes after Mateo and Bruce had finished eating. The view out the front window was restricted, but it seemed like they were approaching a ship or island out at sea. Mateo grimaced at the rapid descent and deceleration, but did not react as badly as he had when they took off.

"We have assigned you quarters on board, so someone will take your bags to your rooms. Unless you need anything from them you should follow me," Natasha said and led the way down the ramp.

Mateo quickly grabbed his sketch pad and pencil case, assuming that he would be tucked away in a corner like he was used to being, before hurrying outside to his father. Bruce had his glasses tucked in his jacket pocket from where he had been reading files so he had had nothing to retrieve.

The sun was making good progress across the sky, and the boy guessed it was around ten in the morning from its position. His watch would now be wildly inaccurate so he had to make do with making an educated guess until he could fix it.

They had indeed landed on a giant boat of sorts, which was teeming with machinery, jets and soldiers. Everything around them had a use or a purpose, with no fancy frills to complicate matters. Sparse and functional was the theme of the boat and its equipment, and Mateo found it altogether a rather depressing design. The cacophony of sounds produced from booted feet, engines, machinery, voices and the wind made even Mateo wince and he looked sympathetically at his father who had even better hearing.

The pair stood to one side out of the way and nervously watched the soldiers hurry past, and their rapid movement added to the tension that pervaded the air. Mateo noticed his father seemed to have tensed up ever since they had left the jet, and he worriedly huddled closer. Bruce put a reassuring hand on Mateo's shoulder and the tiny family took comfort from each other.

Mateo had never seen half of the stuff lying around and part of him was itching to go explore, however he stayed put with the only familiar thing around him. The fact that a lot of the equipment looked suspiciously like they were either weapons or parts for guns also had Mateo wanting to stay well away from them.

"Doctor Banner," a voice called above the noise, and the man in question turned to look at the newcomer.

Bruce knew that Mateo had reverted to his old habit of trying to become invisible, so he tried to help his child out by staying still and creating a feature to hide behind. People were going to see him at some point, but for a short while longer he could keep everyone's attention off him.

In a polite manner the other man offered his hand, and whilst they were shaking hands Bruce took the chance to inspect the other. He may have been behind the times with western culture, having not been to America in at least ten years, but Bruce knew that the man in front of him was not wearing fashionable clothing. He was dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans with a sturdy jacket, and while it was all very practical it was a little too neat and dated for the man's age. Perhaps it was the fact he looked entirely too neat, but the short haircut and muscled physique suggested military training. The kind blue eyes and vaguely lost aura made Bruce less wary of the person and smiled back at him.

"Oh yeah, hi. They told me you would be coming," Bruce said absentmindedly.

"Steve Rogers," the man introduced himself, slightly redundantly. "The word around here is that you are the one who can find the cube."

"Is that the only word you've heard about me?" Bruce said blandly in reply. However inside he was already prepared to be politely rebuffed.

"It's the only word I care about," Steve said in a no-nonsense tone. Bruce liked the man immediately for his attitude, but wanted to sigh at his naivety. Ignoring his other side could be a fatal mistake, even if you were a living legend straight out of the Second World War.

"I assume this is all rather foreign to you," Bruce said by way of conversation after a short pause, instead of voicing his opinion. From the small amount of information in the files he had been given Bruce had learnt a bit about the others being called in to face this Loki. From Steve's file he vaguely remembered that the man had been frozen for seventy years, which was probably why he seemed rather dated and had a slightly lost look.

"Actually this is all rather familiar, military life rarely changes much," Steve said as they glanced around.

"Gentlemen you may want to think about stepping inside, it might get a bit airless out here soon," Natasha ceased hovering off to one side and motioned towards a door. Bruce hadn't really noticed but she had changed at some point into clothing more appropriate for a SHIELD agent.

"Is this thing a submarine?" Steve was surprised when a new voice joined in and a child appeared from behind Bruce to look over the side of the ship.

Steve studied what he could see of the child with interest. It had not been mentioned on the scientist's file that he had a son, but the child couldn't be anything else. They shared the same black hair, and whilst the boy was less tanned they had similar builds. The child had obviously been with Banner as well as he was dressed in Indian clothing, a long green shirt that ended at his knees and elbows, a belt buckled over the shirt, a pair of brown cotton trousers and thin fabric shoes.

"Really? They want me in a submerged, pressurised metal container?" Bruce muttered and followed Mateo to the side. He noticed the soldier staring at his child but let it slide in preference of thinking over the huge list of things that could go wrong with the Other Guy in a submarine.

The sight of two large horizontal propellers appearing from below the water had all three of them staring. Steve seemed to be reconsidering his statement in the consistency of military life, while Mateo looked intrigued at the mechanics of the vessel. It didn't take them long to realise that instead of going underwater they would in fact be leaving it far below them.

"Oh no, this is much worse," Bruce said flippantly whilst inwardly cursing. If they were underwater there was at least the chance that someone could hold their breath until they reached the surface. Unless everyone wore parachutes whilst they flew there would be no way to survive a fall if the Other Guy threw people off the craft.

"We'll be fine," Mateo said confidently before grabbing his father's hand in his empty one and headed towards the door.

The trio were led by Natasha down many grey metal corridors until they eventually reached a large open room that seemed to be the command room of the giant vessel. Strangely there was also a conference table installed in the back of the bridge, while the other half was slightly lower and was full of people working away on computers. Unlike the corridors that had had no view of the world outside this room had one entire wall dedicated to windows. The three males stood looking slightly in awe of the room, while Natasha wandered over to the nearest bank of computers and started checking up on the progress of something.

Mateo was glad of his improved eyesight as he could see that they seemed to be running a facial recognition programme from where he was stood half behind his dad. Although he didn't want to be far from his father in this strange place Mateo took a few steps towards the computers curiously. He missed the awkward half turn his dad made when he realised the nook he had intended to stand in was already occupied by two armed guards.

It was then that a tall dark skinned man approached Bruce and Steve, and Mateo rather got the impression that he was in charge thanks to the long black coat and the eyepatch giving him a rather ominous feel. A lithe female with dark hair spotted him and smiled back at him in a confused manner.

Mateo was itching to explore and see what each computer did (' _they must all do something different otherwise why do they have so many?'_ he thought) but the number of people around made him slightly shy so he settled for lingering near the table. He seemed to meld with it quite well as no one paid him the slightest bit of attention. Another thing that curbed his willingness to explore was the overall feeling of tension and anxiety that seemed to thrum in the air.

The dark man in a long black coat seemed to try to be polite to Mateo's dad, which he was grateful for as it was blindingly obvious the chief guy was armed. However it was also very obvious that his manners and calm was forced, the way the man held his shoulders revealed that he was unhappy with the situation.

If he didn't want to remain happily out of everyone's scrutiny Mateo would have laughed at the silliness of the scene. They had been in many stressful situations and his dad hadn't blown a fuse, why do they treat him like he would explode when someone sneezed? As he watched Mateo noticed that the two guards at the far back of the room seemed to be keeping their eyes mostly on his father, rather than scanning for suspicious activity.

Mateo was almost going to voice his observations in an accusatory manner when Natasha motioned for Bruce to follow her. As much as he wanted to stay and observe the command room more, Mateo decided to play it safe and followed his father. Bruce was already getting into the professional mode Mateo associated with his father working hard to treat a patient. His sleeves were rolled up and there was a glint in his eye that showed he was kicking his brain up a notch to think quickly. Mateo trotted over to the familiar figure and followed closely behind. He thought they would be out of the limelight now they were leaving, but before the door closed behind him he could feel a number of pairs of eyes on their backs.

They wound their way through even more grey corridors until eventually Natasha showed them to a lab then left them as apparently she had a mission to go on. Bruce watched Mateo wander around the room and scrutinise each piece of equipment, and when he had finished he returned to his father's side. The room was pristine white with no signs of prior use, which Mateo was surprised about; they were not used to getting to use brand new equipment.

"So, why are you here? What do they want you to do?" Mateo asked.

"The Tesseract is some kind of unusual power source that emits strong gamma rays, and seeing as that was my area of expertise they want me to track it down. I'm to make a tracking algorithm to get all mass spectrometers scanning for it and try to triangulate its rough location," Bruce explained.

"So, lots of trial and error and lots of maths? I'm going to go and sit over there and doodle," Mateo said and headed towards a lab bench set against the wall. The counter top was at his chest height and was devoid of any handholds or useful gaps for his feet. So despite Mateo's best attempts to scrabble onto the lab bench he failed to get anywhere.

Bruce chuckled at his son's futile attempts to get onto the counter, before he walked up behind him and picked him up. Mateo grumbled indignantly but flashed Bruce a thankful smile as he got comfy. His spot was half hidden from the door by a tall column of cupboards so gave Mateo some shelter from any prying eyes from the corridor.

"You aren't too cold are you? I didn't think about it but we haven't been too far from the equator in a while," Bruce asked. He didn't say it either but the air conditioning in this room was more effective than anything they had experienced in their homes. He was slightly chilly himself but Bruce had always found that he preferred to be on the cooler end of the spectrum whilst in a lab, it helped keep him awake and alert.

"I'm good," Mateo said.

Mateo's green shirt and brown trousers were thicker and warmer than most people wore in India, but were still designed for the dry season out there. Mateo may have been born in England but his body had likely adjusted to living in warm countries over the last five years, so Bruce draped his jacket over his son's shoulders. Mateo rolled his eyes at the man's actions but did happily snuggle into the jacket that smelt of his dad.

Bruce ended up spending the next three hours playing with the computers trying to figure out a basic tracking algorithm to try to narrow down the location of the tesseract. For this time Mateo sat in the corner and sketched what he could remember of the jet that had carried them there, and then the eagle-like logo that had been on the wall of the control room.

When it became obvious that his dad was likely engrossed too deeply to realise he was likely getting hungry Mateo glanced around the room and looked for something resembling a fridge. On the other side of the room a metal container seemed to fit the description, so Mateo slipped off the counter and carefully snuck around the room ensuring that he didn't disturb the man working. Thankfully the door opened silently and Mateo grinned as he found various sandwiches and sealed bottled water.

Bruce was jolted out of his thoughts by a sealed drink and sandwich being placed next to his right hand. He followed the path of the plate back to his smiling son standing on the other side of the lab bench.

"Remember to eat at some point today, it doesn't do for your child to be your minder," Mateo said in a kind tone. "I haven't seen you this distracted since that rabies outbreak in the Congo."

"Sorry Mateo, this can't be overly fun for you," Bruce sighed and took his glasses off to rub his eyes.

"You couldn't exactly leave me in Calcutta, and this is important work. Not many kids can say their parent helped save the world," Mateo pointed out.

"It is still unfair on you," Bruce said as he took a bite of the sandwich.

"I am sure I could entertain myself by having a wander, although I am not sure whether that would be a good idea. I can grab an agent and go to my room and get a book," Mateo voiced his ideas. "And once this is all over SHIELD will owe you and they can take us on a tour of America so I can see the sights and you will be safe from harm."

Bruce smiled at Mateo's decision but before the child could go anywhere he quickly stuck his own head out of the lab doors. As expected there were two armed guards standing outside at each end of the corridor. His appearance out of the lab had caught their attention and he beckoned to one in what he hoped was a nonthreatening manner.

"Hello, I was wondering if there was someone available to take Mateo to our quarters? He wants to get a book," he explained in a polite and friendly tone.

"I'll see if there is someone free to accompany him," the guard said shortly.

"Thanks," Bruce turned and headed back into the lab. He gestured for Mateo to wait with him, "someone's coming."

So while they waited Mateo scrabbled onto the counter to sit by Bruce and listened as he gave a simplified version of what he was working on. Ten minutes later their conversation was cut off by the doors opening once more and another SHIELD agent entering.

Whereas the majority of the people Bruce had seen employed by the company wore black combat outfits, this man wore a smart suit that was slightly rumpled. The tired look around the man's eyes showed that he had likely not had much rest recently and explained the state of his suit.

The man's receding hairline made him look older than he was, but Bruce guessed that he was probably around fifty. His blue eyes looked kind rather than cruel and the man didn't look at all put out at having to walk into the same room as Bruce.

"Hello I'm Agent Phil Coulson, I thought I could take Mateo to your rooms if you still want to?" Coulson said in a mild tone.

Mateo already liked the man for asking him directly for his opinion rather than assuming Bruce made his decisions for him. Although there was the customary gun at the man's hip he didn't seem all that threatening, and Mateo gave a small grateful smile as he relaxed slightly.

"If you wouldn't mind I would quite like to get a book from my bag," he said politely.

"I don't mind at all, we'll be back in half an hour or so," Phil replied as he looked to Bruce for permission.

Bruce wasn't overly keen on the idea of letting his son out of sight, but the agent who stood before them at least seemed decent. The Other Guy was not overly worried by the man which was always a good sign; he had not been shy in voicing his displeasure about the two outside the lab doors. And Coulson was wearing a suit, which suggested he was above the average grunt and so would be important enough to not be harassed or stopped by others. He also had made the attempt to be reassuring and polite to Bruce which earned him extra bonus points.

"Thank you Agent Coulson," Bruce said by way of approval.

"So what do you do?" Mateo asked once they were out the doors and walking down a corridor.

"I am one of Director Fury's subordinates, I take his orders and ensure that they are carried out," Phil explained vaguely.

"Do you enjoy your work?"

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't," Coulson said with an amused smile.

"If I'm annoying you then just say and I'll shut up," Mateo said as he misinterpreted the look. He knew that many adults found children irritating and he didn't want to irritate the man who had sacrificed time to help him.

"You aren't annoying, it's just refreshing to see someone enthusiastic and curious about something. Events have made everyone rather stressed around here," he hurriedly corrected the child. "So what do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I'm going to be a doctor like Dad and help people," Mateo said with certainty. "In India he was really popular for helping those in need who couldn't afford mainstream healthcare."

"Is that where you met your Dad? Do you like it out there?" Phil asked, and Mateo didn't miss the sudden interest the man was showing in the new topic.

"Yes, I love it. The language is easy and the culture is beautiful, plus you can make a difference. Dad is adored out there because he helps people and only asks them to pay what they can. We've been able to life happily whilst we have helped people. Dad may not have been rich but I've had a childhood that is pretty unbeatable," Mateo said defensively.

"I am glad that you feel that way, you certainly seem like a much more grounded youth than so many teenagers and even some young agents I have met," Phil said.

"You do not seem to be that judgemental of my relationship with my father, I would have thought you would be like the rest of SHIELD who seem to be ready to jump out the window if my Dad were to look at them," Mateo looked analytically at Phil.

Coulson pulled Mateo to a stop in a small alcove out of the way of the main corridor. When he had the kid's full attention he said in a serious tone: "I have access to more information than the average Agent, and I have an open mind to see that someone's past is not necessarily what they will be like in the future. I know that your Dad would do anything for you, and an evil man would not be capable of love. Therefore your father might have a bit of an anger issue but I know he is a good man."

Mateo looked at that man and came to the final conclusion that he liked the man, without any doubt.

"So if you are one of Fury's top men why do you have the time to escort me to my room and back? Surely there are much more important things for you to be doing right now?" Mateo asked as they reached the area that made up the accommodation section for all aboard the ship.

"There is a mission going on to intercept Loki and hopefully stop him, so while we are waiting for reports on the success of that I have some spare time. I thought I would probably be less intimidating than some of the other Agents," Phil explained.

"Thank you doubly for coming then," Mateo said as the agent pressed a button to open a specific door.

"This is the room you and your Dad are sharing for now, it isn't that big but then none of the rooms on board the Helicarrier are," Coulson grimaced.

"It's got a bed, that's better than some places I've lived," Mateo said reassuringly as he thought of his cupboard.

Mateo spotted his bag on one of the beds, next to Bruce's personal bag and the medical bag. He quickly opened it up and rummaged through for his favourite book _Robin Hood_.

"What are they for?" Mateo gestured to a grate set high in the wall as they started to walk back to the lab.

"Air vents, obviously for air circulation but also one of our agents would use them for navigating the Helicarrier. It's useful if there is an incursion as we can get through the ship undetected," Phil explained. "The layout is very confusing but if you have a mind for it then the air vents are actually a quicker way of moving through the Helicarrier than the corridors are."

"That would be useful," Mateo agreed thoughfully.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

"Doctor Banner, we are having a meeting up in the control room that we think you should attend," Natasha said as she appeared in the doorway of the lab.

Bruce looked up and nodded absentmindedly and followed her. He had been working solidly for a few hours and had only been distracted once by numerous guards clattering down the corridor as they escorted a prisoner down to the cells. Even if the noise hadn't gained Bruce's attention, and no one could have ignored the clamour, the prisoner wouldn't fail to do so.

Considering everything that had occurred, and the man's odd garb Bruce guessed that they had apprehended Loki. The scientist had read that the god was supposed to be Thor's brother, but he looked nothing like the image of the God of Thunder. Where Thor was tall and built of muscle Loki was whip thin and had jet black hair. Bruce wasn't concerned by being close to the prisoner as he was escorted past, but the fact that the Norse God was grinning like a Cheshire cat had all his senses on high alert. No one facing a spell in their enemies gaol should look as pleased as the trickster god was looking at that moment. Natasha had appeared a few minutes later to guide him to the meeting, effectively breaking this train of thought.

"Do you know if Mateo is already up there?" Bruce asked.

"I haven't seen him, how do you not know where he is?" Natasha asked in concern.

"I was busy working and Mateo often just tucks himself in a corner when I'm busy. He went off to get a book with Agent Coulson… Err probably four hours ago now," Bruce said sheepishly.

"Surely you noticed before now that he was missing," Natasha said coldly as she mentally questioned Bruce's parenting skills. She had given him the benefit of the doubt but his complacency had her concerned with the child's safety once more.

"Mateo is very good at staying quiet and hidden, it's something that his relatives taught him and he still does it," Bruce said in a calm tone as he ignored what Natasha was implying.

"He has a biological family?" Natasha asked in surprise. Very little was known about the child, so any new information was a revelation.

"Not one that wanted him," Bruce said shortly. Thankfully the assassin took the hint his icy tone gave and she dropped the conversation, however both of them knew it wasn't the last time such a topic would be brought up.

Steve was already sitting at the conference table when they reached the command room, but now he was wearing a colourful iconic battle suit. Agent Hill stood to one side, half of her concentration on the workers manning the computer terminals and half on those around the table. A tall and muscly man with shoulder length blonde hair and an unusual black and silver outfit stood to one side gazing out at the clouds with a pensive and trouble look on his face. Although they had not been introduced Bruce immediately recognised Thor from his mug shot in the file he had seen. Natasha took a seat on the far side of the table but Bruce remained standing in case he felt the need to start pacing. He thought better on his feet, and from the atmosphere in the room Bruce guessed he would likely be having to do a lot of thinking this time round.

As the screens in the table played the interaction between Fury and Loki he decided it was likely to be a wise choice to remain standing. Bruce managed to keep an air of calm professionalism as the live feed played out for them to see, but in reality he wanted to punch something. Preferably Bruce would love for the something to be Loki, just so that he could wipe the smug grin off his face. But Bruce knew any kind of violent motion from him would result in numerous bullets or tranquilising darts being fired at him to neutralise the threat of the Other Guy. So he gritted his teeth and stayed stubbornly calm as everyone cast occasional worried glances at him.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce broke the troubled silence once the transmission had ended.

"Loki's going to drag this out. So, Thor, what's his play?" Steve asked the newcomer.

"He has an army called the Chitauri. They are not of Asgard, nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people, they will win him the Earth in return, I expect, for the Tesseract," Thor replied and turned slowly.

"An army, from outer space," Steve said with a slightly incredulous tone.

"So he's building another portal," Bruce said, connecting the dots on a few of the recent thefts and attacks that had been attributed to Loki and his men.

Finding out why Selvig had been taken was useful, But Bruce was reluctant to start to try to dissect Loki's thoughts as he knew that was a dangerous path. The Other Guy was also disturbed by what they had seen over the video feed from the cell, and Bruce knew that his other half could tell that the God was not completely acting with reason. They had moved on to discussing why he suddenly made such a grand entrance at Stuttgart and Barton's theft of iridium when someone joined in.

"It's a stabilising agent, it means that the portal will open as wide and for as long as Loki wants," a new voice joined in with the conversation.

Bruce turned to see a well-groomed dark haired man with an interesting beard stroll through the doors with a rather harassed looking Agent Coulson. From the snippets of news that Bruce had managed to catch of world events he knew that this was Tony Stark, ex Merchant of Death and now Iron Man. Tony greeted Thor with careless informality before carrying on with the conversation on the logistics of building a new portal creating device.

It was a bit of a shock that Tony was able to understand and chat about the topics that Bruce had almost forgotten about from his time in the labs many years ago. He almost had to scrabble around in his mind for the relevant facts and figures that he had not thought about for almost a decade. However Tony seemed to easily chuck out theories to the clueless group as if everything was still fresh in his mind.

From the glint in his eye Bruce knew that Tony was enjoying confounding the others in the room with their scientific discussion. Those who appeared to half understand their chatter Tony managed to annoy with his constant pacing and playing with Fury's screens. Considering the little that Bruce had gleaned of the man through the SHIELD file Bruce was slightly amazed that Tony had learnt so much thermonuclear astrophysics overnight. While many scoffed at the billionaire's declaration the actual scientist in the room was not so sceptical, he had studied with other students who managed such feats the night before exams.

Feeling slightly outdone by the man Bruce quickly answered Steve's question about the power source to confirm he was actually the qualified scientist in this field. Tony bounced a bit of theory off of Bruce before coming over to greet him properly.

' _Did he do that on purpose to prove my usefulness?'_ Bruce thought.

To say that the physicist was shocked by Tony's casual treatment of him like a human being would be an understatement. Everyone had been tiptoeing around him since he had gotten onto the Helicarrier, terrified of being the cause of his other half being unleashed. No one had met his eyes, and those in the corridors had given him a wide berth. It was unheard of for someone to know everything about him and not be worried about the Other Guy, and it threw Bruce for a loop for a second.

Fury's return to the room put a bit of a dampener on the conversation, but it gave the pair ample excuse to leave. It seemed that the surly SHIELD director tolerated the billionaire for his usefulness, but he certainly didn't object to him leaving the conversation at the first opportunity. Tony started to head straight to the laboratory level but Bruce stopped the billionaire.

"I just need to head down to the accommodation level first, I may have left something down there," Bruce said vaguely.

"Fair enough, do you know what room you are in?" Tony asked.

"Err no, I haven't been there yet. Someone took my bag for me and I headed straight to the lab to work on finding the Tesseract," Bruce admitted.

"Well the ship was designed so that all the guest quarters were on the same level, so we can just knock on each door. Or, hang on, JARVIS what room has Doctor Banner been placed in?" Tony asked.

Bruce was confused at the man's antics until Tony flashed his watch at the curious scientist. Although it functioned as a watch, Bruce could see that the genius had altered it significantly. And then the watch spoke: _"Doctor Banner's bags have been placed in guest quarters 12."_

"My AI computer, he keeps my houses running and ensures I know anything going on," Tony said.

"You've built a fully functioning AI?" Bruce replied in amazement.

"JARVIS has been running for almost fifteen years, I've updated and improved him over time but the basic programming has stayed the same," Tony replied flippantly.

Bruce didn't reply as he churned over that information, and the billionaire easily navigated the ship. Banner didn't question how Tony knew the layout of the craft so well as they were soon standing in front of the appropriate room. Bruce hurried in and saw the two beds and the three bags, but no sign of his son. He made a show of rummaging through his bag and pulled out his notepad and pen before motioning Tony to lead on. He already had one assassin questioning his parenting skills, he did not need to add a billionaire to that list, so he pretended nothing was amiss.

However Bruce's concern increased noticeably when he walked into the lab after Tony and found that the room was also empty. He tried to concentrate and return to his work, but he kept looking towards the door in the hopes that Mateo would wander back through.

"I take it the real thing you misplaced was your son?" Tony asked after a short while.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that everyone knows about him, I assume it was in my file? And yes, he went to get a book and I haven't seen him since," Bruce admitted, annoyed but unsurprised that even the fact he had a son was on his file. If anything he was surprised that the man who seemed to have no self-restraint had taken so long to ask the question he obviously had wanted to ask for a while.

"It wasn't on your low-level file, but no system can stay secure for long after I set my mind to it. Once I was called in to help out they gave me a few files to browse through, but I wanted to read the whole story on everyone so I hacked SHIELD's database. I thought that Fury had developed a sense of humour and had placed that as a joke in your file, but it seems like I was wrong. So how did you meet the little fellow?" Tony asked.

"I appeared out of thin air and stuck to him like a limpet," a much younger voice said confidently.

Mateo appeared through the laboratory doors at that moment and interrupted the conversation brilliantly. Bruce smiled at him and nodded in an unsurprised manner as he saw the book that his son had chosen to bring. "Where did you get to?"

"Phil took me for a small tour of the ship, and we got talking. When the news came through that Steve and Natasha had returned he had to go do something so I came back," Mateo said and turned to the stranger in the room. "And who are you?"

"Tony Stark," Tony said like that should have been obvious. The billionaire stood and scrutinised the child in front of him whilst the youth did exactly the same thing to him.

"And what can you do?" Mateo asked after a pause, while Bruce stifled a chuckle at the look of incredulity that Tony was sporting.

"I have a metal suit that enables me to fly and fight," Tony looked even more ticked off that he had to explain Iron Man to a child.

"What metal do you use? I assume you used a mixture as you need something light enough to fly in but strong enough to withstand explosions and such. And how exactly do you achieve lift? Flying implies taking off and landing too, but wings and flapping would be very cumbersome and time consuming," Mateo asked curiously.

"I like him," Tony declared. Normally the man had little time for children and their incessant questions, however Bruce's son seemed genuinely interested in the mechanics of the Iron Man suit. Tony dared to hope that there was a budding engineer hiding within the small boy, and a spark of an idea sputtered into life in his mind.

"He does have a rather insatiable curiosity streak," Bruce said as he ruffled the boy's hair, unaware of Tony's budding scheme. "I'm afraid we have to focus on finding the Tesseract for now, but I'm sure Tony won't mind answering your questions once we are finished."

"I'll go back to my corner then," Mateo said acceptingly. "If I can have a bunk up again that is."

Bruce chuckled and lifted the child up to his spot once more so that he could get down to reading again. Tony looked rather floored by the concept of a child being in the lab but Bruce soon managed to drag his attention back to their work.


	15. Chapter 15 - Disintegrating

**A/N: My sincerest apologies for the late update, was it just me or was Fanfiction not working at the beginning of the week? I kept getting error 503s every time I tried to get into my actual profile to update, which didn't clear up till yesterday. I've also been hampered by having to do a lot of thinking about my career choices and writing CVs. But I think I want to be a Conservation Engineer now so that's at least a decision made!**

 **I'm going to be away this weekend as I'm volunteering at a falconry event, so I'll upload chapter sixteen later today. Monday's update will likely be Tuesday (I haven't reread seventeen properly yet), sorry for mucking you all around a bit.**

 **As always I am incredibly grateful to everyone who gives me a favourite/follow/review.**

* * *

 **Chapter Fifteen – Disintegrating**

A slightly uneasy silence had fallen in the laboratory since Mateo had returned with his book, as it seemed that Tony was unwilling to say something that could upset the child. Bruce could see that the billionaire had no experience with dealing with children so he was floored by the prospect of having to interact with one now. It was quite amusing to Bruce that a man who could face reporters and terrorists was terrified of having to talk to a kid. And Mateo was quite a sterling child, he hadn't budged from his spot as he flicked through that book for at least the twelfth time since Bruce had bought it.

"So is it normal for kids to just quietly sit and read?" Tony said eventually, obviously trying to understand Mateo.

As it had taken him half an hour to speak Bruce was quite surprised by his self-restraint. "Depends on the child, Mateo loves books so he will happily sit and read for hours."

"What, no rough and tumble? No loud arguments, tantrums?" Tony pressed.

"Well we couldn't exactly risk rough and tumble games could we?" Bruce said sardonically.

"No worries of a Mini Hulk having a tantrum because there're no sweets on offer?" Tony tried another angle.

"No, Mateo's not a huge fan of sweets," came the patient reply.

"What about button pressing? No chance of an accidental nuclear strike or our work being deleted?"

"Again, no," Bruce sighed. "And please tell me you didn't bring any controls to nuclear weapons with you?"

"So he doesn't wander off? We won't have any risks of eavesdropping, lost child announcements, accidental injury. Anything?" Tony pressed, trying to find some kind of fault in the child.

"Negative to all those, Mateo's an old head on young shoulders. He's more sensible than you are," Bruce said with pride.

"… huh," Tony was stumped at that. Bruce had to hide his smile of victory at winning that small conversation and turned the billionaire's attention to the machines once more.

Mateo watched in amusement as Tony swanned around the room and played with the various computers with a sense of familiarity and confidence. Although he didn't understand much of what flashed across the suspended computer screens Mateo guessed that Tony had greatly advanced the progress they had made.

The eccentric billionaire definitely had a gift with technology as in under half an hour he checked and finalised the work Bruce had done so far. He also managed to boost the computer power and speed so that they wouldn't need weeks to track the cube as Bruce had calculated. After that it was left to Bruce to monitor the readings whilst Tony started prodding at something else on his computers as he kept an eye on their work too.

He also showed great talent in being able to work through incredibly complex calculations whilst holding a conversation. Bruce wasn't so skilled and his replies to Tony's ramblings were mostly monosyllabic, unless a more eloquent answer was needed to explain his work. The billionaire also seemed to enjoy talking about things that made Bruce uncomfortable, and Mateo gave up actually trying to read his book when Tony started talking about the Other Guy. His dad looked like he'd rather discuss anything else when Tony pressed his point that the Other Guy had more of a purpose than just a rage monster. But Mateo was confident that he could and would handle the attention, although they both heaved silent sighs of relief when Tony turned back to his work and left Bruce to think over what had been said.

Mateo wasn't sure what to make of the billionaire, and as he pretended to read his book he tried to understand the man. The situation they were in was pretty dire, an immortal madman had commandeered an extremely dangerous power source and had hidden it somewhere. Although SHIELD had Loki in custody, the men he had kidnapped were still working on the Tesseract somewhere and so Loki's plans could still go ahead.

And despite the threat of world domination or destruction Tony seemed to be treating it all as just a huge laugh, a form of entertainment better than a TV series. While Mateo could understand if it was his way of coping but he didn't look stressed at all.

Indeed he seemed more interested with offering a tour of Stark Tower to Bruce than diverting his attention to the task at hand. Bruce was too busy inspecting the sceptre that had been taken from Loki to notice the electrical tool that Tony had been playing with until he was jabbed in the side with it.

"Hey! Are you nuts?" Steve said incredulously as he strode into the lab.

"You really do have a lid on it don't you? What's the secret, mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?" Tony asked, and ignored Steve.

"Is everything a joke to you?" the soldier wasn't about to be dismissed though.

"Funny things are," Mateo winced at Tony's blasé attitude. Although he had a more accurate view of Bruce's control acting like the Other Guy didn't exist or was like a tiny dog on a chain wasn't a smart idea.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship is not funny, no offence," Steve snapped, then quickly tried to mollify Bruce.

"It's alright, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't have handled pointy things," Bruce reassured the soldier. Unobserved by them all Mateo frowned disapprovingly at Steve.

"You're tiptoeing big man, you need to strut," Tony slapped him on the shoulder.

"No I am quite content as I am," Bruce said absentmindedly as he looked at the readings coming off the sceptre.

"You should follow the doctor's example and focus on the problem, Mr Stark," stated Steve.

"You think I'm not? Why did Fury call us and why now, not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have all the variables," Tony revealed.

"You think Fury's hiding something?" Steve asked reluctantly.

"He's a spy," Tony like he was saying something extremely obvious. "Captain he's _the_ spy, his secrets have secrets."

"It doesn't mean we should know them," Mateo butted in.

His addition to the conversation surprised two of the three adults in the room. Bruce merely gave him a warning look that Mateo knew was to be taken as a hint to speak carefully. He rarely spoke without thinking, but this was definitely an instance where he wasn't going to act tough.

"Everyone already knows you are one of the smartest people on the ship, you don't have to prove it to us. Sometimes things are better left alone," Mateo tried to reason with the billionaire.

"But it's not just bothering me," Tony protested, "it's bothering daddy too."

"Doctor?" Steve turned to Bruce.

Bruce looked at Steve's expectant face, then Tony before glancing to Mateo in his corner. In response the child just shrugged and Bruce sighed. "'A warm light for all mankind,' Loki's jab about the cube. I think it was meant for Tony, his new tower is a self sustaining energy source. That building will run itself for what, a year?"

"And that's just the prototype," Tony said smugly.

"So if Tony's a big deal in clean energy at the moment, why hasn't Fury called him in to advise on the cube and SHIELD's projects?" Mateo asked as he joined the dots together.

"Have a blueberry," Tony threw one at Mateo, who surprised the billionaire by catching it easily. By inspecting it curiously before he ate it Mateo further baffled the man. However he mentally gave himself a shake and turned back to the conversation. "I should probably look into that once my decryption programmer finishes breaking into SHIELD's secure files."

"I'm sorry, did you say…?" Steve said incredulously.

"JARVIS has been running it since we hit the bridge, in a few hours we'll know every dirty secret SHIELD has ever tried to hide," Tony said almost gleefully. Just to rub it in further he casually offered his packet of fruit to Steve. "Blueberry?"

"And you wonder why they didn't want you around sooner?" Steve said in a neutral tone, but it was obvious that he meant it sarcastically.

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence? Historically not possible," Tony grinned.

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up," Steve decided to ignore Tony's last contribution to the conversation and forged ahead. "This is a man who means to start a war, and if we don't stay focussed he'll succeed. We have orders, we should follow them."

"Steve's right, the sooner we're finished the sooner we can leave," Mateo agreed.

"But you only just got here! You haven't even seen America," Tony protested.

"I'll live," Mateo shrugged.

"Just find the cube," Steve nodded and walked out the lab. Tony was too busy scowling to notice the thoughtful expression on the soldier's face.

"That was the guy my Dad was always going on about, I sometimes wonder if they should have kept him on ice," Tony said in an annoyed tone.

"It's not his fault he's defensive of SHIELD, they have been the only people he's known since he woke up," Mateo pointed out.

"They're an organisation that deals in secrets and subterfuge, he should know they can't be trusted," Tony countered.

"Think about it though, SHIELD helped revive him, gave him a place to stay and a job, and helped him adapt to the changes in life since he went into the ice. To him the betrayal would probably be the same as Bruce deciding to leave me in an orphanage now," Mateo said.

"He's still a sanctimonious git," Tony muttered, annoyed and unwilling to let the child win the argument.

"So he has morals and puts them above himself, it might be the complete opposite of your habits but that doesn't make him a git," the child countered. "If you stop acting like a child then you might get on with him. Maybe even just being slightly serious every now and then could do it."

"How can your child argue with an adult and win? He's ten," Tony said in disbelief to Bruce.

"You said it yourself that he's a genius," Bruce shrugged.

"Yeah well I doubt he could hack into the mainframe like I can," Tony boasted to save his dignity. "The programme's finished, and we can see what SHIELD have been hiding from us."

None of them had to be a genius to understand every file that came flashing up as Tony flicked through the numerous extremely sensitive files that had been hidden behind many firewalls. Although they were very text heavy Mateo could see that some were about Steve, Tony, and Bruce, and the threats they posed as well as counter solutions.

He was actually slightly surprised that Tony seemed more angry than Bruce was. Although looking at the pair Bruce looked resigned, his view of the military and people in power was jaded but more accurate than the other's because of his experiences. He still seemed angry at the revelation, but not half as surprised as Tony was.

"What are you doing Mister Stark?" Fury said as he stormed into the lab.

"I've kind of been wondering the same thing about you," Tony replied without looking away from the screen he was using.

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract," Fury said in angry exasperation.

"We are, the model's locked and we're searching for the signature now. When we get a trace we will have the location to within half a mile," Bruce backed up Tony.

"You'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss… What exactly is Phase 2?" Tony asked as the name popped up in more secret files.

"Phase 2 is where SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons," Steve said angrily as he stormed into the lab. He slammed a gun with an odd logo onto the work bench and glared at Fury. "Sorry the computer was moving a little slow for my liking."

"We gathered everything related to the Tesseract to help study it. This does not mean that we're -."

"I'm sorry Nick, what were you lying?" Tony said smugly as he halted the files flicking across the screen. The particular file frozen in view were the blueprints backing up Steve's claim.

"I was wrong Director, the world hasn't changed a bit," Steve growled out.

Mateo saw Tony about to say something, probably a witty or gloating comment. However he managed to catch the billionaire's attention and shook his head to warn him to keep silent. Thankfully he did, although his silence could have been due to Natasha's and another man's arrival.

"Did you know about this?" Bruce asked indignantly to Natasha.

"D'you wanna think about removing yourself from this environment Doctor?" Natasha said with calm professionalism.

"I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed there," Bruce retorted.

"Loki's manipulating you," the assassin warned him.

"And you've been doing what exactly?" the scientist shot back.

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yes and I'm not leaving because you suddenly get a little twitchy. I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction," Bruce demanded.

Unobserved by the rest of the room who had their eyes fixed nervously on an outraged Bruce, Mateo silently closed his book. It was a futile gesture to continue to pretend to read his book when the room was descending into turmoil. Although Bruce was keeping his calm quite well Mateo was prepared to leap in to help if it looked like the Other Guy might be close to making an appearance.

"Because of him," Fury said in resignation as he pointed at Thor.

"Me? My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor said in disbelief.

"But you aren't the only people out there, are you? And you're not the only threat, the world is filling up with people who can't be matched. Who can't be controlled,"

"Like you controlled the cube?" Steve chipped in scornfully.

Both Tony and Bruce briefly looked respectively approving and surprised with the soldier's comment. However before they could have the chance to speak Thor beat them to it.

"You're work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it. It's a signal to all that the earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A higher form?" Steve sounded insulted.

"Well people do assume that aliens are always more advanced than us, Thor could just be stating what we already know," Mateo cut in in an attempt to calm the situation. He wasn't sure why everyone was getting so worked up but the fact that they were worried him.

"Children have no place in the discussion of warfare," Thor said.

Mateo didn't take it as an insult, The blond looked more concerned in keeping him out of the argument for safety rather than to belittle him. However the already worked up Bruce didn't see it that way.

"Don't talk to my son like that," he snapped defensively.

"Well he's right, the Hellicarrier isn't somewhere a child should be," Steve couldn't help but defend Thor's view.

"He wouldn't be here if we hadn't been dragged from Calcutta," Bruce retorted hotly.

"Agent Romanoff would you escort Dr Banner back to his r-," Fury began.

"Where? You rented out my room," he said bitterly.

"The cell was just a precaution in case-," the Director spoke was cut off again.

"In case you needed to kill me, but you can't! I know, I tried!" Bruce almost shouted.

The entire room froze at the admission. Mateo, who had been contemplating heading over to his father to help him calm down, remained absolutely still in his spot as everyone stared at his father. He had never heard that story before as it was definitely something Bruce would never have admitted to him under normal circumstances. Mateo wasn't sure if he wanted to hear it now either but before he could try to stop his dad Bruce had started pouring out the entire story.

"I got low, I didn't see an end so I put a bullet in my mouth, and the Other Guy spat it out! So I moved on, I focussed on helping people. I was good…" Bruce suddenly noticed his child was in the room. For a second he looked incredibly awkward and embarrassed, but he rallied and carried on. " _We_ were good, I hadn't endangered anyone and we were happy. Then you drag me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk, including my son!"

"Surely you're a risk to him anyway?" Steve asked innocently.

"Don't you dare assume you know Dad," Mateo shouted before Bruce could react.

"I'd rather spend an eternity as the Other Guy than break a hair on Mateo's head," Bruce insisted.

"Accidents always happen, even those you idolise," Natasha shrugged.

While Bruce wanted to argue with her he couldn't deny that that was the fear that had often plagued his mind. If it hadn't cropped up in his dreams it had kept him awake for hours after he had gone to bed. And the assassin had easily brought it up like she was discussing the weather.

But as Bruce was brought up short by the mention of his greatest fear the Other Guy wasn't halted. In fact the casual manner that Natasha shot down Mateo's defence of them both. Even as Bruce felt his own anger recede into cold dread the Other Guy's increased by an order of magnitude, and his anger started to cause the barrier that held him back to crumble under the strain. Mateo was the first to notice that his father's eyes started to glimmer green, and he slid from the countertop to his feet with the intent of approaching his father.

However before he could move the black box that Tony had brought, and had been running the programme searching for the Tesseract, started pinging. Bruce stormed over to the machine, glad of the excuse to change the topic of argument. At the same time it gave him the chance to try to gather his wits and keep the Other Guy in check before something went wrong.

Despite his attempts to keep control Bruce's attempts were in vain. He barely had time to see the location that the Tesseract had been detected in before there was an explosion and the world went to hell.


	16. Chapter 16 - Pieces

**A/N: As promised, tomorrow's update early! Sorry the last chapter was quite short but I aim for around 6K words per chapter as a limit,15 and 16 made over 9K words so had to be split.**

 **Early warning – Updates on the 14** **th** **and 21** **st** **of September will likely occur on the Tuesdays, my sister is going into hospital and I am graduating on those two dates. I reckon the Friday postings will stay reliable for the foreseeable future, it's just the Mondays that are going to be disrupted for a little while.**

* * *

 **Chapter Sixteen – Pieces**

Mateo had enough time when he was falling to the floor to grab the handle of a cupboard. It didn't do a great deal to save him but he was able to avoid being thrown around too much, a luxury that some others in the room didn't have. He had a few bruises on his arms from the cupboard door but nothing bad enough to cause him trouble. There was quite a lump on his head by the end of it, but once he was certain it was not a serious injury he stood and looked around the room.

Steve and Tony were in the process of running out of one of the doors together whilst Fury was calling orders through his earpiece. The other blond also ran out of the room with a look of intent on his face. Natasha and Mateo's dad were conspicuously absent. Even as he waited neither of them reappeared from behind the lab benches, and Mateo began to fear that the huge hole in the window had been created by them falling through it.

"Where's Dad?" Mateo asked even though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

"They fell through the window, so right now we need to get you somewhere safe as the Hulk is likely to make an appearance. Even if you think your Dad has brilliant control falling through a window and down two floors would likely make him less safe to be around," Fury said and extended what he hoped was a reassuring hand to the boy.

"No chance, I'm going to Dad so I can help," Mateo said.

By turning around he could see the blown out window properly, and he gingerly picked his way over the broken glass to the open void. As much as he wanted to just run over to the window Mateo tried to tiptoe around the worst of the glass on the floor. Whilst his shoes were incredibly comfy and breathable the soles were much too thin to enable him to run over so much glass. As he reached the window he discovered that he was just tall enough to look down and could see Natasha and his dad lying on the floor about two levels below.

"Kid don't muck, around we need to get out of here now," Fury said in his most authoritative voice.

He was used to being obeyed, and having an untrained child around tested his patience. With an insubordinate agent Fury could truly let go and shout at them if he wanted, and in such a situation as this he would. However with the Hulk's son he could hardly do that in case the beast learnt of his behaviour and retaliated. In his head Fury kept up a steady stream of infuriated expletives whilst he externally lowered his hand and started to approach the child's new spot. He didn't want to frighten the child into running, and he knew he often had that effect on children, so he moved slowly and carefully.

"But I need to get to Dad," Mateo said, noticing enviously how Fury was able to just walk over the broken glass with his thicker soled shoes.

"He is going to tear this ship apart, and the safest room in the Helicarrier is the Bridge. Come here kid," Fury growled.

"Trust me, I can help," Mateo almost begged.

His emphatic statement bought him enough time to clamber onto the nearest work bench. He took a deep breath before running and jumping through the broken window. The fall was exhilarating as the wind rushed past his ears, and the moment of joy helped him to forget his worries about the possibly painful landing he was going to experience. Mateo tried to follow Phil's advice that he had imparted during their talks earlier and he tucked himself in slightly and rolled on impact to avoid breaking any bones. He felt the scrape of metal and glass over his back as he rolled, but as far as he could tell he was mostly unscathed.

He was unsurprised to see yet another room built of grey metal, but this one seemed to be filled with pipes and other related machinery. The redheaded woman was to his left and did not look at all happy with his sudden arrival. Mateo at first wondered why she was still around, then he realised that her leg had been trapped by falling debris.

"Mateo what the hell are you doing here?" Natasha said in an angry whisper. In her worry and pain she forgot to doctor her words, and was glad that the child didn't seem overly worried by her use of language.

Mateo didn't reply as he saw his dad writhing in pain a couple of metres away. It was obvious that he was in the beginning stages of changing, his veins were tinged with green and his hands were clenching and unclenching spasmodically. While Natasha thought that the end result was inevitable Mateo knew he could help the situation.

At least, he had a theory that could work. He hadn't tried it out before in such a tense situation but Mateo was reasonably certain that the underlying principles were sound. He could either attempt his idea or leave his dad to change and run rampant through the craft they were on. Mateo knew his father would likely disagree with both options, but he personally preferred to at least attempt to deny the inevitable.

"Dad? It's okay Dad, I'm here, calm down," Mateo said as he approached the figure and carefully knelt in front of him.

Bruce was lost in a world of confusion, pain, and increasing anger. Bruce tried to reign in his emotions, but the aftereffects of the explosion and his subsequent trip through a window had shattered his carefully built shields. He could feel the change coming and he was holding the Other Guy back by his metaphorical fingernails.

It didn't help his control had slightly tenuous to begin with. He had been infuriated by SHIELDs deception and their double standards. They wanted his help but were prepared to lock him up and would attempt to kill him the minute he showed any sign of losing control.

Natasha made false promises and expected him to believe them, then refused to meet his gaze in her terror of the Other Guy. Steve had fought through some of the bloodiest battles in WW2 but was almost afraid to meet his gaze. The only one who had acted completely normally around him was Thor, and he had no idea about the Other Guy. Even Tony practically treated him like an interesting lab specimen the way he scrutinised him and tried to push his buttons.

Well he was sick of people tiptoeing around him. If they expected the beast then he would give them him and they could see how futile their containment plans were. The Other Guy wouldn't go down without a fight, and Bruce was pretty sure he could destroy the pathetically delicate Helicarrier before they managed to subdue his darker side.

He had almost lost complete control, and indeed his skin was starting to ripple and turn green, when something new broke through his anger.

A small body was now bundled in his arms and had a firm grip around his neck, resulting in his head being pressed against the child's chest. The confusing whirl of emotions he was experiencing that it took him a few moments to realise that the other being was his own son trapped in the middle of this nightmare.

In stark contrast to before Bruce suddenly slammed all his effort into containing the Other Guy, although by this point he knew it was a futile effort. Although he knew that his son and his other half got on perfectly fine there was no way he could leave Mateo alone in the melee. If the Other Guy was ejected from the Helicarrier that would leave the child alone in the hands of the potential enemy. Mateo would undoubtedly try to follow the Other Guy, and all it would take would be a stray bullet to destroy everything Bruce held dear.

"Mateo get away!" He was able to choke out after a short while of fighting. All three of them were quite aware of the deeper growl that accompanied Bruce's normally mild tones.

"I am not going anywhere Dad, you can and will fight this," Mateo murmured in his ear. "I trust you, you can do this."

Bruce then found another distraction in the form of his son stroking his hair like he had done on so many occasions when Mateo had a nightmare, whilst his son's other hand started rubbing circles on his back. Bruce forgot about anyone else that might have been around and simply focussed on his son's heartbeat and the motion of his hands.

Inside his mind the Other Guy was struggling desperately to get free, and he fought against the remaining barriers in a bid for freedom. Bruce was suddenly aware of how wrong the situation was, normally if he saw reason then the Other Guy could be soothed eventually. However today he was having none of it and continued to rage and roar.

' _Stop it already! If we revolt Mateo could get hurt and die! You know we cannot allow that to happen, so I need to stay in control!'_ Bruce eventually roared back at the dark shadow in his mind.

Normally shouting at his other half accomplished nothing. However this time the Other Guy froze immediately, and Bruce almost laughed in shock and relief. After a short pause the Other Guy started to rumble once more unhappily in confusion and anger but he didn't strain against the barrier between them again. It seemed that they had both finally realised that there was something wrong, and something was toying with him. That did not sit well with the Other Guy, and Bruce was pretty sure he knew what it was.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

After a full two minutes of the pair being locked in Mateo's stubborn hug Bruce sighed deeply and lifted his head. Mateo's concerned gaze locked with Bruce's smiled of triumph at being able to push down the Other Guy once more.

"If you weren't such an amazing child I would be grounding you right now for disobeying me," Bruce said in a light-hearted tone.

"You can ground me once this is all over, for now I think we need to help Natasha free," Mateo answered with a smile as large as his dad's.

Natasha was completely stunned as the father and son got to their feet and walked hand in hand towards her. When she had realised that she had been thrown through the window with Bruce she knew that the chances of her leaving unscathed were slim. With her leg trapped and Bruce fighting a losing battle against his other half Natasha had started a mental checklist to ensure she was ready for death. She didn't exactly have to worry about having homes lined up for goldfish and the like, but she checked that at least she had completed half of the revenge killings she had set out to do.

And then the child had slammed into the ground near to them after obviously jumping after his father. Although it seemed that his sense of self-preservation was so small he didn't think twice about jumping two floors, he at least seemed sensible enough to tuck and roll to avoid injury. Natasha hissed at him to get away and to save himself from the impending explosion of fury. Even when his own father told him to leave the boy disobeyed him and simply forced himself into a hug with his father.

The assassin was not sure what she was expecting to happen at that point, but she certainly wasn't expecting Bruce to stop shuddering so violently and to be able to pull himself back together. After a short while he sat up straight and grinned at his son, who still held tightly onto him. That image alone had Natasha rethinking her entire opinion on Bruce, _again_. Such a phenomenon had never happened in Natasha's career.

"Sorry if I worried you there," Bruce said when he reached her.

"I don't think any apology is necessary considering what you were able to pull off," Natasha replied, grimacing from the pain in her leg.

"Ah, I'll help you out," Bruce said and bent down to grab the metal pipe.

At that moment a group of SHIELD employees rounded the corner, carrying guns as well as medkits. Mateo saw the group whilst his dad was busy bending over Natasha. He noticed how the group seemed to all share unnaturally blue eyes, before he realised that one of them was levelling his gun at his father. He was about to shout to the group to stop, but he was too late. Without so much as asking questions or clarifying the situation one of them fired, a fatal mistake that he would never live to atone for.

Bruce had been unaware of the approach of the group as he reached for the metal pipe. However he certainly was aware of the gunshot and the consequences of the projectile.

He felt the pain of the bullet burrowing through his lower back as it carved a path through an aorta and into his abdomen. Bruce had no time to feel the terror or pain though as the Other Guy surged forward to protect him from death. The change happened instantaneously and Bruce was flung into darkness.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

The sounds of roars and screams increased as the Hulk tore after the four men who had come after him. Natasha was unendingly grateful that the Hulk was more concerned about those who had injured him than potentially harming her and his adopted son. Once the huge green being had charged off Natasha let out a slight sigh of relief.

"We need to move," Mateo reappeared at her side and it took the assassin a second to absorb the fact he was there. To her he had almost seemed to appear from thin air.

Whilst his father had been transforming Mateo had done as his father had instructed him to do many years ago: he found a small corner to hide in until it was safe to come out. With the Hulk enraged by the cowards that shot him Mateo was well aware of the importance of getting out of there before he came back for Natasha. It was unlikely such a thing would happen, his load roars would have attracted the attention of other soldiers by now and they would attempt to contain the Hulk. Not that such efforts would do much good, but it would mean that Natasha should be safe.

"Is there no chance of calming him down?" Natasha asked.

"I don't think so, not when he was very angry and is bent on getting revenge. It is just safer to get out of the way and wait for the storm to blow over," Mateo said solemnly.

He walked over to the metal pipes that had Natasha's leg pinned and heaved on the upper one as hard as he could. His strength was not sufficient to lift it completely off, but he was able to lift it enough for the assassin to slip her leg out of the newly formed gap. Mateo promptly dropped the pipe and offered his hand to the woman, who merely grabbed it and led him on the quickest way out of the place.

"I'm going to head to the detention level, and you are going to go somewhere safe. I think your quarters should be safe enough. It seems that the enemy are in SHIELD gear too so don't trust anyone," Natasha tried to reason with the child.

"Okay, I'll wait for someone to get me. But you can only not trust the ones with the bright blue eyes, they were the ones that shot Dad," Mateo informed her before he trotted off in the right direction.

Natasha was momentarily stumped by the boy's acceptance of her order; he didn't seem to have been the type to follow instructions when he had jumped down to them. But instead of trying to figure the child out she left to attempt to help sort out the myriad of problems breaking out across the ship.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Mateo really had been intending to head towards his room to wait out the battle, but something stopped him. He was running down a corridor that was on fire when he felt a tug of something drawing him to head left. From what he thought the accommodation corridors were to his right, but the odd feeling was drawing him in the opposite direction.

He would not be able to explain in the future exactly what the tug had been associated with or why he followed it, but he couldn't ignore the feeling. Mateo was about to try to navigate the corridors to investigate the odd tugging sensation when he remembered something. Every corridor he had been down had an odd large grille set high in the wall, with holes cut into the wall to act as handholds up to it. Mateo wasn't entirely sure why that had been added, but he assumed that the air vents could also be used as evacuation routes.

So as soon as he found one of the grates and foot holes in the wall he scrambled up and tugged on the metal covering. Luckily it was not screwed down but merely left resting on hooks, however it was too cumbersome for him to hold so he let it drop to the corridor floor. He slid into the rather large crawl space and headed to the left, going where the odd sensation guided him.

The air vents had been built surprisingly spaciously and Mateo didn't have too much trouble crawling through them, in fact an adult could probably move quite easily in them. The only difficulty he encountered was trying to figure out which path to take at intersections because the vents did not travel in the same patterns as the corridors. Added to that Mateo didn't really know where he was going, he only had the tugging feeling to follow. As he travelled he found out that the vents were also not just unusually spacious but also rather well protected, as he did not find any damage done to any of the ones he used.

It took him a while but eventually Mateo found himself sitting at an exit to the vents looking down at some kind of glass cage. The door had just shut, sealing the blonde man, Mateo remembered his name was Thor, inside whilst the black haired man vanished into thin air. But then the same man was standing next to a control panel and he started pushing some buttons. A door below the cage opened, and Mateo guessed that the chamber could be dropped from the ship. With a flash of clarity Mateo realised it was built for his dad, it would provide a quick way of removing the Other Guy from the ship. He wasn't sure if the intention would also be to kill the occupant, but Mateo definitely didn't want to know if SHIELD were that callous.

The two men stood staring at each other whilst the black haired one gloated. They didn't look anything alike, the blonde was tall and broad whilst the other had black hair and was skinny and shorter. But the odd style of clothes they wore had Mateo thinking that they were probably from the same place. He didn't think they were related, the one in green and gold was much too bitter and angry towards the silver and red one. But then did he not feel bitter and angry whenever he thought of his relatives?

He had no explanation for the feeling but Mateo felt pulled towards the angry one, and he was slightly terrified because of it. As he had crawled through the vents he had managed to categorise the feeling as being sort of similar to the one he felt when he recalled something he liked. It was a feeling of the familiar, like the scent of a parent or hugging a childhood toy once more, and it made Mateo feel warm and content.

But as much as the feeling was attracting he shied away from revealing himself to the black haired man in fear. There was no doubt in his mind that the green clad man was their enemy, the one that they had captured and were fighting. That he was the source of whatever had attracted Mateo to this room made him worry. Was whatever was inside of him also evil?

Mateo's thoughts were interrupted when Agent Coulson suddenly appeared, hefting a heavy gun that he used to knock out the guard nearby. The weapon was at least double the size of a normal gun and even Phil seemed a little unsure of how to wield it properly. But despite that he sounded reasonably confident when he politely asked the man by the controls to back away. It made Mateo like him even more that he was still polite when facing the dangerous man.

At first the green clad man seemed to reluctantly obey the orders, but Mateo almost knew what was going to happen before it did. He watched helplessly as the green-garbed man did the same trick of being in two places at once. The real him appeared behind Coulson and stabbed him through the chest with the staff he carried. Mateo realised he recognised it as his dad had been holding it in the lab. How it got there he had no idea, and now he really didn't want to know as he could see it puncture through the front of Phil's chest.

Mateo bit his lip and held still as the blonde man was ejected with the glass cage, while the black haired man gloated to a dying Phil. Mateo could see the Agent slowly bleeding out, and Mateo couldn't hold still any longer. Like at the lab, he kicked the vent open and jumped down near to Coulson. The drop was greater than into Phil's office and the lab, but shorter than his last jump so Mateo didn't flinch at the height.

"And what do we have here? Your company must be very desperate to hire children," the man said scornfully.

Mateo refused to acknowledge the man as he turned to Coulson and started trying to check him over. The wound was large and without the staff to plug the gaping hole blood was seeping into his white shirt, and likely down the wall he was leaning against.

"Look at me when I address you runt!" the man spat.

Mateo's back was to the black haired man, but he saw Coulson's gaze track the man. Phil looked alarmed and worried for a second before he torturously heaved the gun up and fired it. Mateo heard and felt the projectile slam the attacking man through a wall behind them before the room fell silent once more.

"So that's what it does," Coulson said in an almost satisfied tone. As he coughed up a trickle of blood he turned his eyes down at the child crouched next to him. "What are you doing here kid? It isn't safe."

"Trying to save you," Mateo said simply.

They both knew that he was wildly out of his depth, and his attempts were like trying to dam a river with pebbles. However Mateo pulled out the handkerchief Phil had in his top pocket and shakily pressed it to the front wound.

"I don't want you to die, that's not fair! You were trying to help that other guy," Mateo said unhappily. The boy glared at the man's chest and wished that he could will it to heal.

What the black haired man had done could only be described as magic, and thinking about it gave Mateo an idea. He had done many weird things when he was younger, like teleporting to India. So perhaps he could do magic too? It was an absurd thought, and his relatives had made sure that he knew that such idiotic myths like magic were lies. But there was nothing that could describe what he had seen and done other than labelling it magic.

If he could travel to India from England in a second, then surely he could stop this man from dying?

So as silly as it sounded, Mateo looked at the wound and willed it to heal, or stop bleeding or anything at all so that he didn't have to watch this man die. It was never easy to see someone die, and despite Bruce's attempts the child had seen a few very ill patients pass away. Mateo had never lost anyone particularly close to him that he remembered. He may have lost his parents but he had been too young to fully understand it, and he hadn't had any emotional response. But now that he was watching the man in front of him bleed to death Mateo realised how much it would hurt to lose family or friends. And he decided he didn't like it.

With the determination that Phil wasn't going to die Mateo willed the wound to heal. It was difficult to tell who was more surprised out of the two of them when Phil was still alive five minutes later for the med team to reach them.

Mateo was gently pushed to one side as the three medics swarmed around the Agent, setting up a drip and packing pads around the wound. Mateo willed Coulson to stay alive as he was carried out of the room.

Mateo remained staring at the smear of blood on the wall after the four had left, Coulson strapped onto a stretcher, not entirely sure what he should do next. Seeing as the atmosphere on the ship seemed to have calmed down he guessed that his father was off the ship or unconscious. He doubted anyone would want to know where the man was, so asking was likely to be a pointless waste of time.

He knew it was silly to worry whether his father was alright, the Other Guy meant that he couldn't be injured. Mateo knew that the Other Guy left his dad with plenty of nightmare fodder, he had been woken by his nightmares a couple of times. So he wanted to be there for him when he came round to make sure he didn't start feeling too guilty for any damage he caused. If things had really gone bad then Bruce would probably want to leave as soon as possible, and a tiny part of Mateo was worried about being left behind.

A gloved hand on his shoulder brought Mateo out of his thoughts in a quite gentle manner. He traced the limb up to the shoulder and then the head of the aptly named Director of SHIELD, Nick Fury.

"It seems you are as good at obeying orders as Stark is at staying silent. Are you sure you got adopted by the right man?"

"Is Coulson going to be alright?" Mateo ignored the man's question.

"The medics seem tentatively optimistic, but he will be in intensive care for a long time even if he does pull through," Fury said as he looked curiously at the child.

The man seemed about to say something else when something caught his attention in his earpiece. Mateo guessed that reports had started to come in from across the ship on the injured or the damages. After a pause, Fury joined in and told everyone of Coulson's death.

"But why did you say that? You told me he was alive," Mateo said indignantly.

"And he is, but I need something to get the Avengers to work together. Tony and Steve were not likely to do that without a push," Fury explained.

"Oh, alright," Mateo thought about that. "They are going to hate you when you tell them the truth, but I understand why you did it."

"If you can keep quiet about this then you can come with me to see everyone," Nick offered as an attempt to get on the kid's good side. "If not I'm having you locked in your quarters until the whole situation is over."

Mateo nodded and trailed after Fury. He was glad that he had been able to clean his hands of Coulson's blood before leaving the room, he did not want to attract more attention to himself. Fury already was giving him odd looks.

As the pair swept through the corridors Mateo saw a lot of damage pretty much everywhere, either to the ship or to the personnel as they were escorted to the medical facilities. There were very few that did not seem to have some sort of cut or bruise, and Mateo didn't envy the doctors on board as they would be facing a long line of patients.

It did not take them long to reach the command centre again, and Mateo was shocked that only Tony and Steve were at the table. Fury explained that Thor had been ejected in the glass cage, while the Hulk had attacked a jet that had been sent to distract him, leading to him plummeting to earth somewhere near Thor. At least Natasha's absence was explained by her receiving medical attention for her leg before going to oversee the recovery of Agent Barton. Mateo recognised the name and was happy that they had at least gone one person back, at the cost of two others.

Agent Hill was standing at the second command post and watched the proceedings at the table with a sad look on her face. Mateo had initially thought he could stick close to one of the team and watch what went on, but with there being only two people at the table he would be too obvious. So he hung back near the door and watched as Fury outlined the entire Avengers Initiative to Steve. It seemed that Tony already knew of the plan, but he had never considered it would happen.

Tony looked ready to storm out of the room by the end of Fury's speech, but before he could Mateo interrupted.

"What about Dad and Thor?" The three men turned to him, slightly shocked by the sound of his voice. Mateo wasn't surprised at all by the fact that they had forgotten him, he was good at staying still and silent.

"What about them?" Hill asked from her spot.

"Well we can't just leave them, they need picking up so we can stop Loki," Mateo said, trying not to sound like an egotistical child trying to spelling things out to an adult.

"Thor can fly, he can catch up with us. And the Hulk is not exactly the flavour of the month aboard this ship," Hill explained slowly and Mateo couldn't help but feel like she was being slightly condescending.

"Dad had the Other Guy under control until some of Loki's men decided to fire at him. It is not his fault that Loki left nothing to chance," Mateo said in defence of his father. "Besides, it wasn't exactly like he had much choice about being on board, we only knew where we were going once we landed on the ship. Perhaps in the future it would be more logical to put the scientist with an anger problem in a more calming environment than right in the middle of the action. I believe there is such an invention as conference calls that could solve the distance problem."

There was silence for a few seconds before Tony burst out laughing.

"I definitely love this kid," He exclaimed as he saw the put out looks on Hill and Fury's faces.

Tony had been worried about having a child in the middle of a war, and knowing a child was on board when Loki's men attacked hadn't sat well with him. And then hearing the innocent high voice of the child interrupting the dark conversation they had had had made Tony wince, children should not be thinking of death. But this child was standing in front of one of the most powerful people in the U.S and wasn't afraid to speak his mind. Tony had liked the child and his inquisitiveness when they had first met, but his opinion of the tyke rocketed now.

"Unfortunately, Mateo, we have very few running jets left after the Hulk's rampage through the ship. Those we do have that are serviceable are needed to ferry the emergency patients to hospitals, or in case Loki makes a move. Once this is over we can send out search parties," Fury said.

Mateo looked at him pensively then nodded his acceptance of the decision. "Okay fair enough. I'll go to my room then, you probably don't want a child under foot if you are going into war."

The adults had watched the child disappear out of the door, some with looks of astonishment and one with amusement on their faces. They had swiftly returned to more serious topics after they had gotten over the audacity of the child.

After the remaining Avengers dispersed their separate ways Fury returned to his command post and pretended to be busy overseeing the flood of information coming in from around the ship. In reality he was thinking, and thinking hard.

His deception of Coulson's death could come around and bite him in the ass like Mateo said. If the Avengers took it wrong he would have to do a lot of fast talking, as he knew Natasha and Clint were close to the man and Tony hated being played. But if his plans were to work then he needed a catalyst to get the team to focus on working together rather than picking at each other's faults and differences.

And Mateo was a wild card that Fury had not considered. Initially the prospect of having a child on board was nothing to worry about; Fury could have assigned an agent to watch the kid until Banner was done. And at first Mateo's willingness to sit in a corner of the lab and draw had been perfect. His disappearance had been worrying, but as there were no security breaches in the sealed areas Fury had not been overly concerned that the child might have been lost.

The fact that he had magic was completely surprising, and Fury was instantly wary of the implications of this. It was protocol for the Director of SHIELD, and the Council, to know of the existence of magic and the American Ministry of Magic but that was as far as the file went. They had very little interaction with the Wizarding Community unless a wizard went rogue and they were contacted out of courtesy to explain why there was a sudden explosion of activity somewhere. But beyond that the magical folk kept to themselves and didn't involve themselves in day to day life of the world. Even the threat of Loki taking over the planet wasn't enough to make them surface.

So having a magical child, with impressive skills that Fury thought were probably quite atypical for an untrained child, threatened to become as troublesome as having the Hulk on board. If the Council learnt of the boy's existence Fury wouldn't put it past them to decide it beneficial to detain and test the child. As much as Stark thought he was a heartless bastard, Fury would never condone the imprisonment of children.

Casually he played with his screens and brought up the footage of the cell through Loki's escape. It was the work of a few seconds to permanently destroy that footage; he could blame it on the Asgardian's powers and give Mateo peace from the Council. However it didn't stop the Director of SHIELD from creating a few potential plans of his own for the child in the future.


	17. Chapter 17 - The Battle

**A/N: Hello once again, I'm updating on time for once! My weekend was brilliant apart from the sleep deprivation haha. I got to play with a baby Andean Condor which is always interesting, they get inquisitive and try to explore the world with their beak.**

 **Thank you for the reviews that have come through recently, it really is a great confidence boost to read them. And to see the number of followers/favouriters add up makes me smile!**

* * *

 **Chapter Seventeen – The Battle**

Fury was still slightly surprised that his speech worked when about an hour after their discussion he saw one jet shoot off after a red and gold streak. A quick flurry of comm chatter told him that both Barton and Romanoff had left with Rogers and Stark. It was hardly the complete team Fury had hoped for but there was still the possibility that Thor would join them at their destination. Mateo's impassioned outburst had given him something to think about, although he would never admit it. However the chances of Banner making it to the battle would be low, the Hulk could travel at a fast pace but wouldn't be smart enough to get to where he needed to be.

Despite his vow to leave the child alone he felt bad that Mateo had resigned himself to his room, so whilst there was a lull in the action Fury left the command to Hill and wandered down to the guest quarters. He might not be the most comforting or father-like figure on the ship but Banner's son seemed to be quite mature for his age. Nick hoped that that would work in his favour and the boy might be content to at least receive some human contact.

In all honesty he just wanted to have a talk with the child and try to learn whether his suspicions were correct. The child might not know if he could do magic, but he might let slip about other instances of completing odd feats that normal humans couldn't do. If he arrived and was greeted with tears then he planned to just seal the door again and send the first hapless agent he met to deal with the child. Fury may have the time to question a child but he didn't have the time, or patience, to deal with a tearful boy.

The corridors were quieter now that most patients had been treated and the worst of the debris had been cleared up. There were still holes in the walls and the larger chunks of metal were still lying to one side in some places awaiting collection. It was unsightly but for now the Helicarrier was functional, and that was all that Fury cared about.

Upon arriving at guest room 12 Fury knocked politely and waited for permission to enter. As Director he had override codes for all doors, but which a potentially moody child with some unusual skills he decided the best course of action was to knock. He might be a short tempered man but he knew when he could throw his weight around, and when he should be polite. However after the third time of knocking Nick was officially running out of patience so he unlocked and opened the door.

Guest quarters aboard the Helicarrier were as impersonal and sparse as the staff accommodation, and the Banners had not had time to attempt to change that fact. By the right hand wall three bags had been dumped on the bed, whilst the bed on the left remained empty. Whilst both beds showed no signs of being touched, two of the bags had been opened at some point and had evidently been rummaged through, but the third was still shut. Fury quickly checked in every nook of the room and then the bathroom, but the child was nowhere to be seen.

"Agent Hill, I want a general alert for everyone to be searching for a child. Mateo Banner is not in his room and I do not want him wandering around at the moment," Fury ordered into his earpiece as he swept back to the command centre.

He ignored Hill's reply and focussed on planning for the upcoming battle. If his suspicions were correct, Mateo would not be found anywhere on the Helicarrier anyway. The situation did not sit well with him, but the quinjet had been gone for over ten minutes now. Its occupants would not likely turn around for what they would suspect as a trap, so the boy would just have to hope they did not get shot down before they landed.

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Mateo kept deathly still under the seats that he had hidden under and prayed that the crash would not kill anyone. At the time it had seemed like a good idea to steal aboard the jet in order to find his father quicker than by just sitting in their room. But now that they were in a controlled plummet to the ground he was less certain of his idea. He really shouldn't have left his room, but the thought of being left alone with strangers, possibly permanently, had him scurrying to hide in the jet the Avengers were going to use.

He had been incredibly lucky that his choice proved right as the three remaining Avengers clomped up the ramp and ordered the serviceman out. That he hadn't been spotted by anyone had had Mateo almost scratching his head in confusion, he didn't think he had been that good at hiding. Not one of the agents or engineers had seen him as he had snuck through the hangar though, so he just put it in the category of odd things he had done. That list was starting to get quite big, but he shook his head and concentrated on the present rather than thinking about the list.

Their journey into New York had been very fast and smooth as Barton seemed to be a very talented pilot. Mateo had been able to hear their conversation as he stayed huddled under the bench and was surprised that the man was up and about so quickly after such a powerful head injury. The man sounded beyond angry at being controlled though, and would occasionally mutter about getting Loki back, so that was probably what was powering him. Natasha had alerted Steve when they were approaching their target, and it was all Mateo could do to stop himself jumping up to take a look.

By the time the jet had arrived at the city the battle had already begun, and Mateo was desperate to know what was going on and who was there. The other three had earpieces and were in contact with Tony, and from their faces it looked grim. Natasha took control of the weapons and started shooting whatever was attacking the city, while Barton concentrated on navigating the tight streets to minimise the damage they did to the city.

It was as they were climbing up into the sky that Natasha pointed out Thor, who was apparently attacking Loki on the tower. Both agents happily coordinated an attack on their enemy, but even with their cooperation it did not last long. A loud thump and muffled explosion told Mateo that they had been hit long before they started plummeting.

Thankfully Barton was a good pilot and despite one engine being shot out the four of them reached the ground safely. Still no one noticed Mateo as they checked each other was unhurt before piling out the back of the jet. Whilst the three of them charged off to fight the invading army Mateo followed at a slower more hesitant pace. He crawled out from under the bench of chairs and gingerly tiptoed to the end of the ramp, checking the entire time that there was no Avenger around to spot him. Not that they could do much beyond locking him in the jet, and as he looked around Mateo didn't think they would risk that.

The city around them was exploding and being engulfed in flames, debris rained from the sky and the streets were being torn apart. The shots of the aliens were powerful enough to ignite the petrol in the cars and could blow huge chunks out of the tall skyscrapers. There were screams and shouts of terror coming from every direction as the people of New York tried to find shelter from the maelstrom that had descended on their city. Any anxiety Mateo had about being caught by an Avenger disappeared and was replaced with wariness for nearby explosions or falling matter.

Now that he was in the middle of a battle zone Mateo realised how reckless his decision had been, he was not able to help in the battle as he could not fight at all. He would barely be able to defend himself from a normal human who attacked him, let alone these grey skinned aliens that wielded very powerful guns. All the stories in books and told by storytellers forgot to mention how loud, confusing, and terrifying it would be to be caught in the middle of a battle. Mateo felt himself start to panic and become overwhelmed by the confusion, and for a minute he despaired.

But as Mateo looked up he saw the portal and thought that perhaps he could help close it, and that thought helped to centre him and stop him crying. He wasn't brilliant with science but he could at least inspect it and find a way of shutting it down. Iron Man was going to be busy fighting and the Other Guy didn't have Bruce's intelligence, even if he did turn up, so he might be of use as a last resort. It was a very long shot, but as another blast showered the jet with rubble Mateo thought it was possibly safer for him than remaining in the jet.

The screams and explosions were disorientating at first, and for a while Mateo was so terrified he wanted to find a safe spot to hide in in order to wait out the battle. However there was not really anywhere safe, the aliens were destroying everything and a building could fall on him at any minute. He had gotten himself into this mess, so it was up to him to get himself out of it again. And in order to do that he had to sum up the courage to move and the determination to ignore the death and destruction around him.

Hoping that he could remain undetected, Mateo set off at the fastest pace he could maintain for a while and jogged in the direction of Stark Tower. The journey was made more complicated by the boy having to dodge falling debris, explosions, and people but Mateo made good progress. He seemed to be in luck, as everyone was too busy running away, and the aliens were too busy going after the bigger targets, that no one seemed to notice the child running in the wrong direction. Even Tony seemed to not notice him when shot past flying low to the ground, but that could have been because he had three aliens chasing him.

It was almost miraculous that ten minutes later Mateo arrived at the reception of Stark Tower without being hindered. He had a few scratches from small bits of flying rubble but nothing major. Even when he got inside no one stopped him, the two security guards seemed more worried about the explosions outside and the rest of the huge room was deserted.

The building confused Mateo for a second, but as soon as he spotted a lift he ran inside and slapped the highest level button he could reach and waited patiently. It seemed to take as long as it did running to the building for the lift doors to close. And when they finally did it took even longer for the lift to travel all the way to the top of the building. Finally the lift opened on the highest floor Mateo could reach on the panel of buttons and he searched for the staircase to run the rest of the way. When he finally found the staircase, they had been through the door at the end of the corridor, Mateo discovered he still had twelve floors to cover.

The roof was surprisingly empty of litter and pigeon mutes, and was just covered in loose gravel. A three foot high wall ran all the way around the edge for safety, but beyond that there was little permanent decoration to the roof. But even despite the spartan look Mateo could imagine it would be a pleasant place to spend an afternoon, if there wasn't a battle going on.

Today the sparse roof was decorated by two new additions that obviously weren't a permanent feature. An unconscious man was lying in a rather uncomfortable looking position a distance from a machine. The device that created the portal was mostly silver and gold and linked via cables to a laptop on a stand. The entire set up stood there whirling innocently as the city below roiled in fear from the creatures unleashed from the black hole in the sky that the machine made.

Mateo approached the computer set up and with some effort stood it upright, and adjusted the screen so that he could read it despite the glare of the sun. After a minute of careful examination Mateo sighed unhappily, the science was beyond his level and he would not be able to help at all. It had been a rather futile hope that there would just be a big 'stop' button, but Mateo had had to try.

His gaze landed on the unconscious man who had been caught up in Loki's schemes. The man was obviously a civilian from his formal but comfortable and personal clothing, he had grey hair and his physique was wrong for a soldier. There was gravel stuck to his forehead and it was obvious that he had been knocked unconscious. Mateo wasn't sure why or how that had come about, but he guessed that his best option for shutting down the portal lay within that man's mind.

Although Mateo had no medical equipment he scurried downstairs and found the nearest toilet, which thankfully had a drinking glass sitting next to the sink. He quickly filled it and grabbed some toilet paper before trotting back up to the roof to tend to his patient. The man would be able to fix the machine, there was no other reason that he was there beyond to monitor and control the programme. So Mateo would fix the man and would help a small bit towards ending the invasion.

At least, that was the reasoning he held in his mind as he ran over to the man, hopefully it was good enough to stop his father being completely disappointed with his reckless behaviour. If not then he dreaded to think what kind of punishment Bruce would decide as being appropriate for his disobeying of orders. Mateo knew his father would never strike him, he had sworn he wouldn't so many years ago, but Bruce was clever enough to find something Mateo would miss that he could take away.

As gently as he could he pushed the man over and dabbed at his forehead with the wetted paper. The man had a slight cut on his forehead and gravel stuck in dents that had been created by the force of impact, but nothing majorly troubling. From the scraggly unkept beard and deep bags under his eyes Mateo guessed he hadn't been taking care of himself much. After a bit of mopping of his neck and forehead the man started to grumble and regain consciousness.

Mate was surprised to see the man had brilliantly blue eyes when they first opened, but after a pause they flickered and dulled to a more natural blue. Even then his gaze was quite unfocussed and vacant, as if his mind was still setting itself in order from the blow. The gentleman sat up and leant his back against the low wall.

"Take it easy there, it looks like you hit your head pretty hard," Mateo said as the man started to register what was going on around them.

"Who are you? What are you doing here? We aren't safe," the man said quickly once he was fully cognizant and had realised he was sitting next to a child.

"I am part of a group here to stop Loki's madness," Mateo said.

"Even Thor would not be so mindless as to bring a child into a battle, so who would?" the man grumbled.

"It was my own decision to come and see if I could help, no one else would ever consider letting me join if I'd asked. They were right though as I don't think I can help, but seeing as you built the machine perhaps you can stop it?" Mateo asked.

"I may be able to do that," the man looked over at his creation with equal parts admiration and loathing.

"The computer part is still fully functional, and obviously everything else is as it is still working. But you should probably double check it all as you know it better," Mateo said as the man clambered slightly unsteadily to his feet.

"You're quite smart for a what, nine year old?" the man said as he clicked buttons on the keyboard.

"I'm ten, eleven this year," Mateo said almost like a question, then carried on before the man could latch onto his hesitancy. "You are probably dehydrated so you should finish that water before you get on with work."

"Doctor's orders?" he smiled and downed the glass.

"I think the machine should be alright, logically they will want to keep the portal open for as long as possible and damaging the machine wouldn't help," Mateo offered his opinion as the man did a quick check.

"You're right, nothing is amiss."

"So is there a way of shutting it down?" Mateo asked hopefully.

"There's no physical way of penetrating the shield it generates, Stark's already tried to blow it apart," the scientist said as he stared thoughtfully at his creation. "But there might be a less violent way…"

Before he could expand on that point their conversation was cut off by a body falling out of the sky and rolling to a stop on the far side of the roof. Mateo was slightly worried that it was an alien, as neither he nor the scientist would likely be able to overpower it. However the flash of red hair had him calming down again and feeling slightly sheepish at being found.

"Selvig, it is good to see you unharmed. And what are you doing here Mateo?" Natasha said in a stern voice.

"I wanted to look for Dad, but it was pretty obvious it wouldn't be easy to find him in the battle. So to help I came and helped Selvig wake up to close the portal," Mateo explained yet again, happy to know the man's name without asking.

"Who is your father?" Selvig asked.

"Bruce Banner is, or more accurately right now he is that huge green thing over there," Natasha explained.

Selvig wisely refrained from commenting and focussed back on his creation. "We need Loki's staff. You cannot protect against yourself, and the energy inside the staff would allow it to penetrate the shield."

"I'll get it, we need it quickly and if I encounter Loki I have a higher chance of escaping," Natasha said and quickly disappeared.

"So, the Hulk's son? I have to admit I did not see that coming," Selvig said in the quiet.

"Adopted son, although apparently I have a decent resemblance to him to pass it off as biological relation," Mateo corrected him.

"You certainly do, and you have the intelligence to match him," Selvig complemented.

Natasha was back very quickly, before Mateo could ask how Selvig knew his father. He was slightly irritated by that fact but seeing as there were greater things at stake at that moment he bit his lip and watched the two adults work. Natasha soon had the staff aimed ready to stop the machine, and Selvig did yet another check to ensure nothing was likely to go wrong before they could stop the machine. Although it would be useful if the machine exploded Mateo really didn't want to be caught in the blast.

Natasha quickly tapped her earpiece in order to alert the rest of the team of their plan. But before she could act and close the portal someone told her to stop and she froze obediently. They could only hear her side of the conversation, and Mateo was about to ask what the delay was when a red and gold blur shot past them in the direction of the portal.

"Is he directing a missile?" Mateo asked.

He had never seen Tony's metal suit before, but seeing as the billionaire was the only one who could fly Mateo guessed rightly who it was. The impression he got of the suit before it disappeared from view was that Stark had obviously not designed it to be stealthy. Unless he was infiltrating an organisation that only used red and gold as a colour scheme for their lair.

"Someone decided that aiming a nuclear bomb at the city was the best way to stop this invasion," Natasha said grimly.

Stark disappeared into the portal and everyone waited with baited breath for him to return. Around them the invading beasts suddenly went limp and died where they were, obviously destroyed as their source of power was nuked. The black patch of sky suddenly bloomed orange from the impact of missile and ship. The patch of orange grew until it filled the entire patch of space and threatened to bleed through the portal, but Tony was yet to drop through. As the flames got closer, and the threat of nuclear fallout approached, Mateo heard someone order Natasha to close the portal. Without any sign of joy or malice, the woman did just that.

Selvig and Mateo had turned to look at Natasha as she stopped the machine, but then they returned to staring at the sky, hoping that Tony made it out. The portal shut and the sky returned to its normal colour all around, with no triumphant blaze of a crazed billionaire flying across it.

"Look, there he is," Mateo pointed out, his slightly better eyesight giving him the advantage.

"He isn't slowing down, I don't think he is conscious," Natasha said when she spotted the flailing dot.

"I hope someone catches him then, he won't survive an impact with the sidewalk," Selvig observed worriedly.

The three of them were watching worriedly when a green blur shot past the buildings and grabbed the metal object out of the air. Mateo had to admit that he had been expecting Thor to be the one to come to the rescue. Seeing as he hadn't been Mateo hoped the god hadn't been hurt badly enough to be stopped from flying.

The Hulk's landing was not the softest one possible, and even from all the way up on the roof they heard the crash of him impacting with a car or metal object. However Mateo didn't think that either of them would suffer negative effects from the impact, the Hulk certainly would be fine. As soon as he knew where the Hulk was Mateo was off and running after him, determined to see his dad. Natasha called after him but the child was already through the door to the stairs and was legging it to the lift, leaving both adults standing staring at the wrecked city around them.

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"What happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me?" Tony blurted out as he woke up from his trip through the portal. It was the first thing that sprang to mind when he finally registered that he was being intensely stared at by three other males.

The Hulk smiled and roared his amusement at the question, and even Steve smiled at it. Obviously his attempt at breaking the silence worked well as he even got a smile out of the God of Thunder.

"We won," Steve replied, looking around the carnage they were sat in grimly.

"Yay, good going team. You know we should take a day off, not come in tomorrow. Has anyone tried Shawarma? I have no idea what it is but there is a Shawarma joint a few blocks from here and I really wanna try it," Tony rambled, revelling in being alive and able to breathe.

"We have some unfinished business to attend to," Steve reminded him. His tone was a lot softer and warmer than when he had berated the billionaire in the lab hours before.

Tony realised what he was talking to and sobered up quite a lot. However there was still a hopeful glint in his eye when he asked "then shawarma afterwards?"

He accepted the hand up from the super soldier and the four of them walked back to Stark Tower as quick as they could manage. Steve, even with his heightened strength and stamina, was feeling quite tired and would have loved to have hailed a taxi to get them to the tower. Tony was unwilling to try flying this suit again after the battle and its trip through the portal, at least until he had had a chance to give it a service. Plus he refused to leave any tech behind, so he had to wear it to get it home. Thor could have flown but he would not have managed to have carried anyone with his injury.

And the Hulk seemed to be wanting to ensure his shield brothers were alright and was not charging off to smash anything. There really wasn't anything left around for him to smash either, so he was entertaining himself by walking over all the wrecked cars and crushing them further into the ruined concrete. Whenever he encountered a Chitauri body he nudged it, none too lightly, to ensure it was dead. Both Tony and Steve were almost slightly amazed by the Hulk behaving so calmly and rationally, and Tony was sure that Bruce would want to hear how cooperative his other half had been.

They were halfway back to the tower when the sound of approaching feet had the Avengers slowly proceeding with caution, ready to attack if it was a stray Chitauri. However when the thing came around the last car three of them dropped their fists immediately, and the Hulk relaxed once more.

"Dad!" Mateo shouted happily and launched himself forward to cover the last five metres to the Hulk as quickly as possible.

Now that Bruce had gained an extra four feet at least and a tonne of muscle, his son barely came up to his waist, and the sight of the child hugging his leg painted quite an amusing sight. The Hulk did not seem to mind the child doing his impression of a limpet; in fact the two men and the god watching the scene would swear they heard him sigh in defeat at it.

Steve and Tony gaped as the giant carefully lifted Mateo by the collar of his shirt and plonked him down on his wide shoulder. Thor on the other hand looked like he would want to attempt riding the Hulk in a similar fashion in the future. Mateo placed a leg either side of the Other Guy's head and gently grasped his hair to stop himself slipping.

"You know that the rubble and dust you have in your hair is going to take an age to get out Dad," Mateo said to the huge beast beneath him.

The Hulk huffed patiently in response and started walking again, and it was only as they were about to get pushed out of the way by the giant did Steve and Tony start walking again. Thor continued to give the Hulk a wide berth because of their interaction during the battle, but he was less worried of a punch now that Mateo was around. The three of them attempted to quietly discuss what they had witnessed as they travelled, all the while watching Mateo who ignored their stares.

The Hulk seemed oblivious to the odd contrast the scene was to his rampaging anger earlier. He was more engrossed in picking the most even route through the carnage so Mateo would not be jostled by him climbing over cars. The boy on his shoulders started picking the lumps of rubble out of his dad's hair as they went, looking for all the world like a chimpanzee grooming a friend.

They were joined by Clint at the doors to Stark Tower, and the agent didn't look at all phased by the sight that greeted him. However Tony spotted the bemused look in his eye as he saw the child sitting on the green shoulders like it was the most natural thing in the world. Without trading any words the Hulk put Mateo gently down with his team mates and jumped up the outside of the building to reach the top level. No one asked how he knew where to go, they had already been surprised by the Hulk enough today and just accepted it. The others got the lift and Mateo spent the journey nervously shuffling and hoping that he wasn't asked what he was doing. It seemed that an unspoken decision was made that they would ask him later, and they arrived at the top level without breaking the silence. That could have been due to the sheer level of tiredness and pain everyone was experiencing, but whatever the reason Mateo was grateful for the silence.

Mateo hung back as the six of them loomed over the slowly awakening Loki. The man was lying in a crater in the once elegant penthouse floor, and it didn't take a genius to figure out how it had been made. The smug and satisfied look on the Hulk's face also gave the answer away pretty quickly.

No one seemed ready to start a prolonged physical battle with Loki, and so their united aggressive stance was arranged purely for intimidation. Thankfully the god was smart and surrendered immediately, seemingly finally aware that he was outmatched by those in front of him. Some SHIELD agents appeared soon after Loki had surrendered and led the man away, which was when it happened.

Loki was passing where Mateo was standing and their eyes met. Despite their pace Loki stopped and stared at the boy with such intensity that Mateo dropped his gaze to the floor. The child had attempted to stay out of the way and had stayed by the bar so the various adults didn't trip over him. If a ruckus had broken out he was also placed directly by a good amount of shelter and would have been safe. His plan seemed to have worked as some of the agents hadn't even spotted him, but now he was pinned with nowhere to hide from Loki's scrutinising.

The Hulk immediately saw what was going on and the room was filled with a deep angry growl as he voiced his displeasure. When the noise first started up the few SHIELD agents in the room jumped in terror and started reaching for their guns. Even if they had not heard about his cooperative actions in the battle, the fact that he had been quite peaceful standing in the tower should have given them an excuse to give him the benefit of doubt. Clint and Natasha gripped their weapons tightly and tensed as if preparing for a fight, but they were looking at their fellow agents rather than at the Hulk. However before the situation could deteriorate Steve raised a hand and gestured for everyone to stand down. Luckily the SHIELD agents did.

Meanwhile the Hulk's quite low and quiet growl had increased in intensity. In the five seconds it had gone from a restrained sound of protestation to a much more forceful territorial type of noise.

Tony, who was standing almost across the room from the behemoth, could feel the vibrations running through his ribcage. The sound made him think of the kind of warning growls a dog would make just before it attacked, except infinitely more powerful. It was obvious that the Hulk had had enough of the disgraced god and was exercising all his self-restraint in not reacting. Seeing as the Hulk had already created two craters in the floor with the god Tony did not want to go for a hat trick.

"Move on reindeer games, before we make you," Tony said forcefully because Bruce couldn't.

Loki hadn't moved for the fifteen seconds or so that the drama had gone on for, and had just stared at Mateo with a confused curiosity. To everyone's relief the defeated man did as he was told and the Hulk's growling subsided with a satisfied snort.

Mateo shuddered slightly as the intense staring ceased and he felt that he could move again. There had been no malice in the god's eyes, if anything Mateo would have said that they were just as lost as Selvig's had been when he came around from being possessed. He wasn't sure but the child had a sneaking suspicion that Loki had been controlled too. But right then he didn't overly care, he was more concerned with finding something comforting after the creepy experience.

Mateo's sudden movement from the bar to the Hulk's side resulted in the low rumbling to cease as the behemoth once again was able to reach and protect his child. As the rumbling cut off the tension in the room dropped too as the threat of imminent destruction reduced exponentially.

"I wonder what attracted his attention to Mateo?" Natasha said thoughtfully once Loki had disappeared in the lift.

"He saw me before on the Helicarrier so he cannot be surprised by my presence," Mateo said thoughtlessly.

"And how did you meet on the Helicarrier?" Tony asked, his voice almost sounding reproachful and a touch paternal.

"I was exploring in the vents and I found the cell, he seemed to spot me despite me still being in the vent," Mateo said half truthfully.

"Hey those vents are mine kid," Barton said jokingly. Although Mateo was pretty certain who the man was he quickly introduced himself as Clint Barton.

Mateo trotted over to him and politely held his hand out to be shaken, and the Avengers hid their amusement as they watched his antics.

"I was merely keeping them warm for you in your absence. You can have them back now as I highly doubt Dad and I will be back on that ship any time soon," Mateo said with a smile in return.

"Trust me, we are taking land transport for the rest of my life," the group spun to see a freshly shrunk Bruce standing in the living room.

"Ah, all our clothes are still on that Helicarrier. Tony, can we borrow some?" Mateo asked as he saw his dad gingerly clinging to the shreds of the jeans he had acquired from somewhere.

"Sure, each guest room has assorted sizes of clothes, go down that corridor and have a look. But be quick, I want shawarma!" Tony called after Bruce who wandered off in the right direction.

The gathered Avengers then spent the next few minutes watching Tony who struggled to pull his suit apart so that he could walk freely. Apparently there was a machine that could do it on the smaller arm that extended out from this room, but Tony was determined to get shawarma as soon as possible so he chose to take it off manually. He also muttered something about the damage possibly causing it to malfunction and that he didn't want to risk his limbs being pulled off.

Steve seemed like he really wanted to speak up and either offer help or to tell the billionaire to just go down to his workshop for tools. Clint was too happy watching the billionaire struggle and Thor didn't really understand the suit to have an opinion. Mateo was quite happy about his choice as he could look at each piece as it was dumped on the table in front of him. The sheer amount of wiring and metalwork that went into the suit astounded Mateo and he gained a new level of respect for the man that had designed and built it.

Before the child could get too engrossed in examining the suit Bruce reappeared and Tony ripped off the last of the leg plates and stepped out of the boots. The seven of them then piled into the lift together and then slowly wound their way through the carnage to the shop that Tony had been itching to visit. He laughed as he pointed out a wrecked taxi with a large dent in the side, which he himself had apparently created after slamming through the bus stop shelter.

The owners seemed shocked to have five familiar figures stride in through their rather wrecked doorway. It only took them a few seconds of glancing from the news playing on the television to the newcomers in their establishment before they made the link and were hurriedly making an area clear for the group to eat in.

"Here, if you can keep the food coming and let me know if we reach the limit. We would appreciate it if you wouldn't mind locking the door too, the press can be rather annoying," Tony said to the owners and slapped a pile of notes on the counter.

Mateo had been tucked slightly behind Bruce but he was able to see just how much money Tony put down. Mateo saw at least six one hundred dollar bills on the counter before Tony had finished rummaging in his pockets and handed them over. Unsurprisingly the owner did hurry over to lock the door and he also pulled down the shutters over the broken glass windows. It left the room slightly gloomy with only the electric lights above them, but it gave them peace of mind that they could eat without interruption.

Shawarma turned out to be the kind of kebabs that Bruce and Mateo had tried during their short trip through Arabic regions, although the kebabs now served to them were three times the size. Mateo was not majorly fond of the American version, which seemed to be overly greasy, but seeing as he had only had sandwiches for the last day he happily tucked in.

Everyone else around the table wolfed down at least three each to compensate for what they had burnt off fighting that day. Thor was happily working through his sixth while Bruce was beating the others by finishing off his fourth. Natasha and Tony seemed fascinated by his ability to keep eating, but Mateo knew how much energy the Other Guy burnt through. Transforming twice in a day, and both of them had been quite long and proactive stints, meant that Bruce would have to eat a lot to replace the calories burnt and then he'd sleep for a long time.

There was little conversation as the group were mostly dead on their feet, and that beyond fighting they had very little in common to talk about. Mateo finished his single portion of shawarma and sat kicking his feet slightly before his gaze roved around the place. He could spot a few Arabic words that he recognised and spent a short while learning a few more from the English translations below them. When it became obvious that the group would continue to sit in silence and eat for a while longer yet, Mateo stood and trotted over to the woman who was attempting to clean up.

" **Can I help?"** Mateo asked in Arabic.

The woman seemed shocked that there was even a small child tagging along with the people who had saved the city. But after a quick look she had noted the similarities between the man who had not been fighting and the child. She assumed that his father must have been some kind of tactical advisor calling the battle, and that his child had been brought along for the celebrations. Seeing the amount of work she had to do, and the eagerness in the boy's eyes, she nodded and retrieved a broom.

" **If you can sweep what you can into a pile that would be great,"** the woman replied to test the boy's understanding.

" **I start over there,"** Mateo replied, pointing to the seating area.

"Is your son always on the move?" Tony asked as he slouched back in his chair and gently massaged his stomach.

"It depends if there is work to do, he can't resist helping out if there is something he can do," Bruce said as he watched his son start sweeping up the smaller bits of rubble and dust.

"You guys helped in the battle, I can help in the clean-up," Mateo called over.

"Mateo you don't have to prove anything, if that is what you are worrying about," Bruce said gently.

"I'm not, but I am finished eating and I was slightly bored, so I may as well help," Mateo replied. His look of determination made everyone drop the subject.

Eventually the group finished eating, with twenty five portions between the seven of them, and staggered back to Stark Tower. Tony saw the assassins start to reach for their earpieces and stopped them.

"I have plenty of rooms and spare clothes at the tower, you're welcome to stay the day, or night. Or however long you want," Tony said with a yawn. "There's food in the fridge and alcohol at the bar, the rooms on this level and the next two up and down are free for use. I'll see you later."

Everyone looked as exhausted as the billionaire so they all immediately followed Tony down the hall and took a guest room each. Mateo looked at his father and smiled when the man nodded to the unasked question, and the pair entered the same room. The beds were king sized and were covered by a thick duvet and heaped with fluffed up pillows. Tony had had the room painted a light cream practically white colour and overall the room looked quite impersonal. Neither of them complained though as they just wanted to sleep.

Bruce took a shower first after digging out a loose t-shirt and shorts from the walk-in wardrobe, and Mateo spent the time rummaging for any clothes he liked. Tony hadn't been lying when he said that he had stocked spares of every size, although there were no children sized clothes, so Mateo found some rather small adult shorts and t-shirt to use. They were black and grey respectively, which Mateo was not overly fond of, but they would make for decent sleepwear for the night/day. He was less taken with the fact they were women's clothes too but they were the smallest he could find.

The large shower confused Mateo for a bit, as it was a lot more complex than he was used to. Thankfully his dad had left it at a reasonable temperature, so all Mateo had to figure out was how to turn it on, and then what each of the bottles of soap did. He was used to one dial and one button on a shower, and one bottle of soap, but here there was at least ten different types of soap. By the time he was done towelling his hair dry and had returned to the bedroom his dad was already in bed and half asleep by the looks of it. Mateo smiled at the drowsy look on the man's face before wriggling under the covers and getting comfy. Even though he had had more sleep than the adults the last evening, Mateo too was soon drifting off along with his father.


	18. Chapter 18 - One Question Becomes Many

**A/N: Hello once again folks! Thanks for all the reviews/favourites/follows since Monday, sorry I haven't replied to those that have come in as I've been busy. I had an interview for a job and I think I've got it, but we shall have to wait and see.**

 **However there have been some brilliant suggestions/ideas I may try and incorporate. Some people have touched on things I would be including but they may not turn up for a while!**

* * *

 **Chapter Eighteen – One Question Becomes Many**

Bruce awoke many hours later to the familiar feeling of Mateo curling up against his side, and the unfamiliar feeling of sinking into an incredibly soft bed. His memories of the last day were fuzzy at best, as his during stints as the Other Guy he was shoved to the back of the beast's consciousness, and he could only catch glimpses of the Other Guy's actions. However what he could remember was a lot of productive smashing of Chitauri soldiers (although a lot of buildings got damaged in the process) and then Mateo appearing in the middle of it.

He remembered the Other Guy feeling very content with his day as they had walked back to the Tower, as he had got to smash a lot of things whilst the child who called him dad sat on his shoulders and groomed the rubble out of his hair. Bruce looked down as his child in complete bemusement and tried to decide whether to scold him for his idiocy or to praise him for his bravery.

As if felling the gaze on him Mateo surfaced from his sleep and blinked rapidly until his eyesight cleared. When he spotted his dad was awake he smiled.

"Morning sleepy," Mateo said to him.

"I'm awake before you," Bruce pointed out.

"Today you are, but you have been out for a day so I win."

"I've been asleep for a whole day?" Bruce asked, shocked that he had slept for so long.

"Yep, Tony was ready to call a doctor to have a look at you but I talked him out of it. To be fair everyone else slept for at least fifteen hours, Clint and Natasha were out for twenty and Tony was only awake because he wanted to get fixing his suit in case of an emergency. That and Pepper, his girlfriend, arrived and I think she had a fit at him for endangering himself. Thor was off seeing that Loki was secure yesterday morning, and Steve doesn't like sleeping for too long so he had gone to help with the clear up," Mateo explained.

"I'm still surprised that I slept for… 36 hours straight," Bruce rubbed his eyes after looking at his watch. He had missed it, and was grateful that Mateo had kept it safe rather than it being destroyed by the change to the Other Guy.

"Well at least we have a long day to cover anything we need to talk about," Mateo said and scrabbled up to get dressed.

Bruce noticed as his son returned from the bathroom that he was in new clothes that fit him perfectly. The colours were of the usual earthy tones that Mateo wore and Bruce was surprised by how comfortable he seemed in American clothes.

"Tony has been avoiding contacting SHIELD for our bags and his equipment in case Fury calls us in for a debrief, so he bought me some new clothes. He had Pepper take me shopping to look after me, and I tried to stop him but he insisted," Mateo explained. "There are some clothes more in your size that you should like too."

At Bruce's quizzical expression Mateo took a deep breath and quickly outlined what he had done the day before.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

 _ **Flashback**_

 _Mateo had awoken and immediately could tell that his dad wouldn't be waking any time soon. There wasn't any physical indication as Bruce was sleeping like he normally did, on his back with one arm over his stomach and one around Mateo. He only knew what was likely from experience with the other few times the Other Guy had appeared._

 _The child's stomach rumbled gently in warning of his hunger and Mateo had a small internal battle about what to do. He could stay in the extremely comfortable bed and wait for his dad to wake up, or try to venture out of the room in search of food. He knew that Bruce wouldn't likely wake for a long time yet, as yesterday would have completely exhausted him. So Mateo carefully rolled out of bed and put his old clothes on before sneaking from the room._

 _The sun was just starting to dart between the skyscraper filled skyline and he paused in his journey to the kitchen just to marvel at the sight. He hadn't really had the time yesterday to really appreciate the view, the plumes of smoke and haze of dust had also detracted from the beauty._

 _No one else was up yet that Mateo could tell, there wasn't any sign of life in the communal areas at least, and he didn't expect anyone to stir for a while yet. The clock on the oven said it had only just gone eight in the morning. Mateo heaved the huge fridge open and perused the shelves for anything that could substitute breakfast, and spent ten minutes just reading labels. The cupboards were filled with similar eclectic range of foods._

 _In the end the child settled for toast as something he could prepare and would definitely eat. He wasn't sure what Tony's policy was on eating food on the sofa so he quickly ate his breakfast in the kitchen and washed up his plate before going and sitting by the window. Two of them were smashed and had been roughly patched over so he sat near the wall where there was no risk of being near the drop._

 _With their bags still being on the Helicarrier Mateo realised he had nothing to do, all his books and sketchpads were in their room. Apart from his favourite one, he realised. He hoped that that book survived the explosion without too much damage. There was a large TV on the wall but he had no idea what channels would be worth looking at for something to watch. It also wasn't his to play with, so Mateo left it alone and entertained himself with looking out the window._

 _To him it seemed that there were a lot of helicopters circling the city, and when an occasional one came close he could sometimes see the names of presumably news channels painted on the side. When a few started to circle the tower to film the damage Mateo carefully snuck around to sit behind the sofa out of sight._

 _Perhaps an hour later Mateo's silence was shattered by the lift chiming and the doors opening, revealing a very smartly dressed and rather distressed looking woman. She had cherry blonde hair and blue eyes that seemed to too quickly pick out all the damage in the room, as if she had been expecting carnage. However Mateo guessed that if she had driven here she probably had seen some of the external damage and would have known what to expect._

 _The woman seemed to be quite worried about something, and Mateo thought he would remain unseen as she hurried off. However she was just about to leave the room when her gaze landed on him._

" _Oh hello, I didn't see you there," the woman's face instantly transformed from worried to an attempt at welcoming. "Who are you?"_

" _Mateo Banner," he said dutifully and stood to give a short bow._

" _Well you are a very polite man, I assume your dad is Bruce?"_

" _Yes ma'am," Mateo replied._

" _Sorry my head's not with it today, I'm Pepper Potts. I run Stark Industries and I'm Tony's girlfriend. I don't suppose you've seen him?" Pepper asked._

" _The last I saw he was heading to bed, but I haven't seen anyone leave since," Mateo said helpfully._

" _I'm just going to check on him, but I can show you how to operate the TV if you want so you have something to watch?" she offered as she walked to the remote control._

" _Thank you ma'am," Mateo said._

" _It's Pepper, and I hope you don't mind me calling you Mateo?" Pepper said with a small smile._

 _Now with the TV for entertainment Mateo didn't feel quite so uncomfortable, and he soon became absorbed with the debates raging hotly on every news channel. It seemed that the world was still trying to come to grips with the thought of superheroes, let alone the idea of aliens. Although there had been some unrest with unusual humans through the years the very public display of power the Avengers had given had ignited the globe's interest and fear._

 _Pepper was back an hour later with a rather delicate looking Tony in tow. Mateo would have guessed he had been drinking from his appearance, but he knew he hadn't. It was much more likely that he was still very sleep deprived and an intense talk with Pepper hadn't helped his mind. The man instantly headed to the kitchen and the coffee machine whilst Pepper quickly set about fixing them some breakfast._

" _Do you want anything kiddo," Tony called over._

" _No thanks, I had some toast and juice earlier," Mateo replied._

" _Toast isn't breakfast, it's a filler. How about some pancakes? Pepper makes amazing blueberry ones, I'd offer to make some but I can burn a salad," Tony admitted._

" _I've never had them so you might just waste them on me, I'll be alright," Mateo tried to decline the offer, he wasn't hungry and wouldn't be for a while yet._

" _You've never had pancakes? Get over here and try one then!" Tony said in a shocked tone._

 _Mateo winced at how Tony seemed to practically order him around, and he was rather reluctant to spend time with the man. However Tony seemed to notice the boy's discomfort and looked confused and a little lost. Pepper was much more inviting with her warm smile and an encouraging nod of the head, so Mateo gingerly walked to the kitchen and accepted a plate with a pancake on it. He was a bit confused as to how to eat it until Tony smothered his with maple syrup and more blueberries, so he mimicked the billionaire in adding the same topping before gingerly nibbling a bit._

" _How do you eat something so sweet for breakfast?" Mateo said once he finished his first mouthful._

" _It's energy for the day, and much more appealing than toast," Tony replied easily._

" _It's… different," Mateo said thoughtfully as he tried another bite. "Not sure I could manage it every day but it is quite nice."_

 _Pepper watched their antics with an amused look on her face as she watched the child-like adult wolf down his breakfast, whilst the actual child poked his food suspiciously. She hadn't heard anything about the Avengers beyond what Tony had let slip before the whole debacle, so to have a child appear alongside the Hulk surprised her. But the child was sweet and polite, and Pepper had already fallen for his puppy eyes._

" _Mateo, are those the clothes you wore yesterday?" she asked as she finished scrutinised the boy._

" _Erm, yes?" Mateo replied hesitantly. "The rest of our clothes are still on the Helicarrier and I didn't think pyjamas were appropriate for out here."_

" _We need to rectify that, you might be here for a few days and you need something not covered in dust and holes," Tony said critically._

" _It's alright they will be fine after a wash and some stitching. I'm good at patching stuff," Mateo argued quickly, they didn't have the money to waste on new clothes when these would last for a little while longer._

" _Not happening, you need a new wardrobe for New York and I'm paying for it," Tony said firmly. "Pep, can you take him shopping with Happy? I'm going to go see to the suit then head out and see if they need help with the clean up."_

" _I'm glad you listened to my suggestion," Pepper said smugly, "I take that's only because you don't want to come shopping?"_

" _Not at all, but currently New York needs Iron Man. Have fun kiddo," Tony smiled at Mateo before vanishing into the lift._

 _Shopping in the city was certainly an experience for Mateo, and he ended up spending most of the time just following after Pepper as she picked out clothes. Most of the stores in the immediate vicinity of the tower had been damaged so they had walked then hailed a taxi to get to a mall further out in the city. Without Tony they didn't attract too much attention, but Mateo was still uncomfortable with any stares that came their way._

 _By the time they returned to the tower Pepper had managed to find three sets of clothes that suited Mateo that met his approval, and had picked up more clothes that were more to Bruce's tastes. Although Mateo didn't enjoy the shopping part of the trip he found himself enjoying Pepper and Happy's company as they both tried to get to know him._

 _Happy was a bit gruff and awkward to start with, but Mateo managed to get through his tough exterior with some subtle compliments and innocent questions. By the end of the trip Happy was acting less like the security detail he was hired to be and more like a normal human._

 _Pepper seemed to be enjoying having a child to dress and it was only Mateo's polite insistence that he really didn't need toys or extra clothes that stopped them from leaving heavily laden. The woman was kind and genuinely listened to him when he spoke. She was never patronising or ignored his own opinion when he gave it._

 _Mateo was quite pleased that although he felt guilty for taking their money for clothes, he also felt that he could now count two more adults as friends. It wasn't many, but it pretty much doubled the tally from what it had been that morning._

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

"So now you know I'll go make breakfast, everyone is using the kitchen on the next floor up seeing as Loki broke this level," Mateo finished off and quickly disappeared out the door.

Now that he was slightly more awake Bruce could feel that his body was incredibly rested after his almost coma-like sleep. Although he realised he felt rather dehydrated and hungry as a result of being unconscious for so long. Mateo had been right and new clothes had been put into the walk in wardrobe that were more similar to his usual style, so he gladly got dressed in a purple shirt and black trousers. The shoes he had borrowed for the meal a couple of days ago were still just inside the door so he slid them on again.

He hadn't noticed after the battle that the rooms were slightly soundproof, but upon stepping outside of their room Bruce could hear the sounds of workers much more clearly. It seemed that Tony had decided to completely remodel the top of the tower, and the workers were busy ripping out all the fixtures and furnishings for the improvements. Bruce shook his head at the man's indecisiveness and frivolous spending habits before heading for the stairs to the floor above.

Mateo was there like he had said and seemed to be in the middle of creating the biggest fruit salad possible. The child had already cut up an entire pineapple with numerous apples, bananas, strawberries, and kiwis, and had a mound of blueberries, grapes, cranberries, and dried peach slices to add to the bowl. It was almost obvious that Mateo still wasn't used to so much space in a kitchen as he kept all his work to a tiny part of the kitchen counter.

"How many people are you catering for today?" Bruce asked as he went to flick the kettle on.

"Well I thought I could make lots then we can either eat it later or someone else can have it. Natasha and Clint might like some, or perhaps Steve if he comes around. I think Tony lives off coffee, and Thor is a bit of a carnivore," Mateo said jokingly.

Bruce felt a little annoyed that he had slept for so long, it seemed that even if his son hadn't become friends with the Avengers he at least knew more about them than he did. However Mateo said that at least Clint, Natasha and Thor were apparently considering using the building for another couple of days whilst everything was sorted out, so he still had time to catch up with everyone. But he put those thoughts to one side as the tea was ready, and he grabbed some natural yoghurt from the fridge to go with the fruit salad. Once they were settled at the breakfast bar Bruce turned to his charge and put on his serious face.

"Right Mateo, shall we go through what happened yesterday and you can tell me exactly what you were doing in the middle of a warzone?" Bruce asked neutrally.

Mateo pulled a face but honestly explained his thoughts and concerns, and ran through the events from the Other Guy getting loose on the Helicarrier all the way through to their jaunt to the shawarma joint. Bruce sat quietly and listened fairly to the entire story, then continued to sit silently after Mateo had finished his story had covered his antics over the last day.

"Well I'm slightly disappointed in you, you are smart enough to realise that a battle ground is not a safe place to go into without any kind of protection or training. Also you should know I would never abandon you," Bruce said calmly, and Mateo hung his head in shame. "However your treatment of Selvig possibly sped up the closure of the portal and meant that the man was at least more aware to make quick decisions than if someone else had merely slapped him awake."

Bruce sat and thought for a bit more while Mateo looked at him with a faint look of hope in his eyes. "I can hardly ground you as we have no home at the moment, nor can I take away any kind of privileges as there is very little in the world that you do that is not creative or beneficial. So all I can say is that I am disappointed in you, and that I wish you would act more rationally in the future."

"Sorry Dad," Mateo said quietly.

"And now I have done my duty, I think we should eat up and forget all about it. We can see how we can be useful nearby with the clear up or in the hospitals," Bruce said.

They had just finished their breakfast and Mateo was washing up when the silence was interrupted by the thumping of heavy feet on the stairs. Mateo seemed unconcerned by the sound, so Bruce followed his example and flicked through a newspaper that had been left on the counter. Soon Thor appeared, wearing his entire battle garb, complete with long flowing red cloak and hammer.

"Good morning, Thor," Bruce said in greeting.

"I am afraid it is not, Doctor," Thor said seriously.

"What's wrong?" Mateo asked as he emptied the sink of water. The child was not a fan of the chore so Bruce had almost tentatively suggested he do it as punishment.

"I have been talking to my brother, and he has raised some disturbing concerns," Thor explained slowly.

"What has he said? Do we need to get the others here?" it was Bruce's turn to turn serious.

"It only concerns you two, or more specifically young Mateo here," both adults looked at the child, who suddenly felt incredibly nervous.

"What does Loki want with me? We've only seen each other twice," Mateo said in a small voice.

"Loki is well versed in the use of magic and how it feels, he says that you are a Seidr, a magic wielder of Midgardian descent," Thor explained at their confused looks.

"Are there such people? There have been some odd incidences in the past that we couldn't explain but I have never encountered a human magic wielder," Bruce said.

"When we first visited Midgard there were a few individuals that could wield magic, and they used to be very common a millennia ago. Your myth of Merlin is not purely the story that you believe it is, as I learnt from Lady Jane. According to Loki there are still many Seidr on the planet, but they remain hidden to avoid persecution."

"Well Mateo being a Seidr is nothing worrying, I admit I am confused about the logistics of someone controlling magic but I am not going to disown him because of it. However I doubt family harmony would be something that would cause enough concern for Loki to send you here," Bruce looked thoughtfully at the Norse God.

"As I said, Loki is much better attuned to magic than I, and he says he has felt a second presence attached to your son."

Bruce stood stock still for a few seconds before turning to his son and kneeling at eye level to scrutinise him. Mateo was as baffled as his father, and the two stared into each other's eyes for a minute.

"The Other Guy is quite good at sensing things, and he doesn't seem concerned about Mateo having another side like I do," Bruce turned to Thor once he had finished letting the Other Guy have a metaphorical sniff around.

"I am unsure whether Loki detected a split personality like you, Doctor Banner, or if he suspected some kind of possession. According to him his contact with the child was too limited to be certain," Thor said uncomfortably.

"So you are implying we go to meet him and talk this through?" Bruce said in a carefully measured tone.

"We don't have much of an option, we don't know if there would be anyone we could talk to in the magical world that could see what Loki has found," Mateo pointed out.

"There is one other option," Thor said slowly, as if unsure about the idea. "My father may be able to detect the same thing as Loki and could fix it. We have technology on Asgard that can do much more than what yours is capable of."

"Travelling to Asgard may be difficult though until the Bifrost is fixed," Bruce said. "Although if your father was agreeable with the idea I would much rather him sort out the problem than Loki."

"Perhaps we should go see Loki and let him figure out what he sensed, then we can decide whether to trust him to fix it or to ask Thor's father to take a look?" Mateo suggested.

"Loki is secured in a facility that means he cannot hurt anyone, and I am sure Fury would be agreeable to ensuring no SHIELD member attacks you again, friend," Thor said.

Bruce looked unhappy with the idea of retuning to any SHIELD base again, seeing as the last time he had caused a few million dollars' worth of damage. "I am not letting Mateo anywhere near your brother unless I am nearby, no offence Thor."

"I understand, Loki has not endeared himself to anyone here," Thor said honestly, but with sadness in his eyes. "I can fly us there now if you are agreeable?"

"Lead the way," Bruce nodded and the trio walked up to the roof.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Travelling by hammer, as Mateo thought of it, was an odd experience. Mateo decided that it was probably the closest that anyone could get to flying, although there was no obvious propulsion beyond the magic of Mjolnir. Bruce and Mateo were aware of the wind whipping past them and ruffling their clothes, but they were able to see perfectly without pain. If they had had the time to aske Thor some questions Mateo would have loved to have heard how Mjolnir worked to protect those that were flying, however as soon as they arrived at the SHIELD base they were distracted.

The soldiers looked extremely on edge when they saw Bruce at Thor's left side, but they refrained from raising their weapons. Mateo was glad of this, the subtle stares were tolerable but pulling guns was simply unfair on the man who had worked as part of their team to save the Earth. The least they could do would be to cut him some slack.

Thor seemed oblivious of the slight raise in tensions and gestured the direction they would head in before leading the way. Bruce strode to catch up and was able to match Thor's pace reasonably comfortably, although he had to keep a fast pace to keep abreast of the man. In contrast Mateo ended up settling for a trot where three of his steps matched one of Thor's.

The three entered through a large metal door and immediately ended up heading down many stairs. Mateo was unsure how far down they ended up going, but the corridors were freezing from the cold earth around them. It seemed that their destination was at the lowest level in the facility, and Thor strode through to a cell with an ease that spoke of his many visits to his brother.

The cell was not dissimilar to the cage that had been built for the Hulk on the Helicarrier, and Bruce had a sinking suspicion that this prison was originally designed for the Other Guy as well. Inside the glass walls Loki sat on a hard bench bed and stared at the newcomers with undisguised interest. Obviously he received very little mental stimulation, so even some new faces were a welcomed distraction.

"I brought them as I said I would, brother," Thor said rather redundantly.

Loki didn't deign to reply but merely sat there and stared at Bruce and Mateo. Bruce looked away first, nervously shifting feet and unconsciously fiddling with the hem of his shirt. He was still very much aware of the consequences of the last time the god had played with his mind. However, in contrast Mateo held his gaze impassively and waited the man out.

After three minutes Loki smiled and stood. "I like this child, he has fire in his soul."

"It helped me survive until someone cared about me," Mateo said shortly. "Something you should know well, seeing as you are adopted too."

Loki regarded the boy again and seemed to decide to ignore the last sentence Mateo said. He walked to the edge of his cell before talking again, "We may as well get on with what we have gathered for. If I am to examine you then I need you to come closer."

Mateo felt his dad tense up behind him, so he flashed Bruce a comforting smile as he walked to within a metre of the glass walls. "If you cannot sense what's wrong from here then you do not deserve the reputation that has built up around you."

Loki looked both infuriated and amused by the one who was playing with his ego. Mateo raised an eyebrow and waited patiently for Loki to do whatever he was going to do. The adopted Asgardian seemed to give up trying to regain some superiority and made eye contact with the child. The captive put his hand on the glass wall before frowning in concentration.

At first it seemed that nothing was happening, but slowly Mateo was aware of a buzzing in his ears. The sound then seemed to become a feeling inside his head and he started to feel a headache building around the area where his scar used to be. As much as Mateo wanted to look away and scratch his forehead he couldn't do anything, he was frozen and slightly afraid.

The pain was reaching levels equal to a migraine when Loki dropped his hand and sighed from his exertion. Mateo rubbed his forehead as if trying to get rid of the pain, but he found that it was ineffectual. As soon as Loki had cut the connection the pain had vanished, leaving only the memory of the sensation to bother the child.

"So what did you find brother?" Thor asked once both the magical users stood back from the glass.

Mateo looked hopefully at the man sealed in the cell. Loki sighed and looked at the two adults. "I was right, there is a second presence within the child."

Bruce looked ready to interrupt, but Loki raised a hand. "No, it is not the same as with your monster, it is more like a sliver of another's soul has attached itself to the boy at some point. Did you have a severe head injury at some point in the past?"

"I had a scar when I was little, but Bruce paid for me to have plastic surgery so that it wasn't visible anymore," Mateo tapped where the lightning bolt used to be.

"Do you know how it was caused?"

"No, I had it for as long as I could remember. My aunt and uncle said I got it when my parents died," Mateo shrugged.

Without any further information Loki moved on. "The presence has survived alongside your magical core, and although it hasn't grown as you have it shows no sign of dying off of its own accord. There seems to be no obvious negative effect on you apart from perhaps a few extra talents, but I would not recommend you keeping it there."

"Will it harm him to have it for a few more years? I would rather not expose him to a possibly painful procedure to have it removed just yet," Bruce asked.

"As I said, there is no obvious negative effects of the extra piece being in there, it is not feeding off his life energy or his magical reserves, it just seems to be using his body as a storage container," Loki rolled his eyes at having to repeat himself. "It will not harm him for it to remain there, nor will it harm him to have it removed. In the same vein delaying the inevitable will not lessen the unpleasantness of the process. However you will have to wait until you find someone able to do what you require."

No one wanted to discuss the possibility of Loki doing it and an uncomfortable silence fell.

"So can you sense other magic users on Midgard?" Mateo asked, and was careful to use the terms that Loki would use.

"Not accurately from here but whilst I roaming your world I could sense pockets of Seidr across the globe, mostly they seem to keep themselves separate. Less than a percentage of your population have the gift so discovering these men would not be easy if that is your intent," Loki supplied.

"I just wandered if you knew anything about them, I've not heard of magic being real before," Mateo shrugged.

"Like I said, with so few of them being around it would be easy to dismiss odd happenings as a trick of sight. Some Seidr do make their way in life amongst the majority as street performers, but the power that they, and you, wield is much more versatile and dangerous than mere tricks."

"Do you know what I can do? Can you tell how much power I have?" Mateo asked eagerly.

Bruce was going to interrupt; he did not like the idea of Loki spending more time than necessary with his child. However Loki did not seem to be too annoyed by Mateo's questioning, if anything he seemed almost happy to indulge the child.

"The Seidr that existed when Odin and his ilk first visited Midgard were limited by their knowledge. Those I found recently are limited by tradition and nonsensical guidelines than by knowledge, it is almost amusing," Loki smirked. "If you train with them you'll be as blind and powerless as they are."

"And if I wasn't limited?" Mateo asked.

"You would not be as powerful as I am, our magic is different and I've had centuries to practice. However, you could easily destroy the monster you call a father with a single spell," Loki declared.

"He isn't a monster," Mateo stated firmly. "He's different and that means he is misunderstood. The same as you."

Bruce put a hand on Mateo's shoulder to indicate their departure, he had kept his silence and allowed the two to converse. Loki was only likely to turn the conversation into an argument about semantics and Mateo would not be able to keep up with the silver tongued god. Thor looked reluctant to leave but turned to lead the way out, and Bruce nodded respectfully for Loki's work.

"Thank you for taking a look, Loki," Mateo said honestly before he turned away.

The god looked surprised to be thanked sincerely and nodded in acknowledgement. Mateo returned to his father and the trio bid the god farewell before leaving. The child looked back before the door slammed shut and he managed to catch the pensive look on Loki's face.

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"You went to visit that psychopath?!" Tony was not happy when they returned.

They had just made it to the new communal level and had settled down in the living room when Tony had burst through the lift doors. Obviously he had hacked into the SHIELD security cameras and knew everything, so Bruce didn't even try to deny it.

"I assume you hacked the CCTV footage and watched everything? He had the answers we needed and we didn't know of anyone else we could ask," Bruce rubbed the bridge of his nose as if warding off a headache.

"It could have been a trap," Tony huffed. "And yes I did watch the footage, I've also erased any records that SHIELD could have of your conversation or visit."

"With Thor and Dad there then I highly doubt we would have any problems," Mateo pointed out whilst Bruce smiled gratefully at Tony for his action.

"What's done is done, we are back safe and with more questions than answers," Bruce said with a tone of finality. He refused to discuss the meeting and his son with the man he barely knew, and there would be no way he would budge on that stance. "What is the situation here with the city?"

"Steve's been helping out with the rubble clearance the last couple of days, Natasha and Clint have been staying out of the way as they are still SHIELD operatives and need a level of anonymity. Although Clint's been missing for a few hours so he is probably out helping too. I'm going to suit up again and help as Pepper said that we need good press. Which reminds me; if anyone asks about the two of you, as you are likely to be spotted anyway, what do you want her to say?"

"Well we cannot stay for long, so being spotted is likely to not be a problem," Bruce said.

"You can't just leave, I haven't shown you the R&D department yet, or the labs, or anything I'm working on," Tony protested.

Tony wouldn't say it out loud, he didn't do sharing his emotions, but he had quite enjoyed the short amount of time he had spent with both the Banners. As the two had guessed the billionaire had no idea how to deal with kids but Mateo had been smart and reasonably easy to talk to. He still wouldn't consider having a child of his own any time soon, but Tony could be persuaded if they were as easy as Mateo. With that revelation, and the possibility of a good friendship in Bruce, Tony wasn't about to let the pair of Banners leave quite yet.

Mateo was similarly disappointed to hear they were going to be leaving soon, but held his tongue. He knew Bruce was likely still feeling guilty about 'hulking out' in the Helicarrier, and he had never been truly comfortable since they had left Calcutta.

"Tony I am a wanted fugitive, I cannot stay here in case Ross turns up and opens fire again like he did at the university ten years ago. Plus I have Mateo to think about, I cannot run the risk of being caught," Bruce sighed.

"Exactly, think of Mateo. The kid needs a decent place to call home, and where better than here? He can get a decent education and get to play with all the coolest gadgets here, while you could do proper research and be a scientist again," Tony exclaimed.

"But that does not remove the problem that I have an anger management problem as you pointed out, and that I am a wanted man," Bruce argued.

"We can talk to SHIELD about that, they said they kept people off your back before and they can do it again, otherwise I will withdraw my funding and tech. Also think about the problem if you are caught elsewhere, who will look after Mateo? Granted he is a smart kid and would probably get along fine, but here there would be other people to look out for him if you had to be called away," Tony ploughed on.

"Don't guilt trip me into staying here," Bruce warned, annoyed that the man was considering of sinking that low to get his way. Tony luckily stopped with that train of thought, which gave Mateo a chance to speak up.

"We could see whether there were any small clinics that would want an extra helping hand," Mateo said quietly. "It wouldn't be as beneficial as being in developing countries, but you said it yourself once that running was becoming harder as more places started to have rumours of the Other Guy."

"Even Mateo agrees with me," Tony crowed.

"I am not agreeing, I am laying the facts out," Mateo snapped at the older man, surprisingly backed out of the family discussion for a short while. "You could practice your proper field of science again and help the world that way, and I can learn to be a doctor and get qualified. There is the risk of people coming after you, but if the Other Guy was seen to be useful as an Avenger then it would be a lot harder for someone like this Ross guy to kidnap you. However I know you've said that rich countries cost more to live in, and I doubt our Rupee stash would convert to many dollars."

"Don't worry about that, you can move in here," Tony couldn't restrain himself any more. "You help me with some of my other projects and then you can have a share in the profits they generate. I'm sure you have some ideas too that we could work on to help people in the countries you've been in. And seeing as I am remodelling the tower I can build you two your own personal level to live in."

"I don't want us to be a burden," Bruce said weakly.

Tony grinned like a cat that had the cream, and he pushed his advantage. "Bruce I have an entire tower here, then a number of houses across the globe and my own island. Stark Industries profits mean I wouldn't be able to bankrupt myself even in three lifetimes at my current rate of spending. So you are moving in."

"Do I have to enrol at a school?" Mateo asked. He was not against learning, but the types of behaviour and customs of American kids was likely completely different to what he was used to.

"We could probably home school you if you wanted, Bruce and I could teach you science, math, English and D.T. without any trouble. We could get a tutor for the rest," Tony said. He was exhilarated that his idea had come to fruition, his possible friend and the child he could almost see himself adopting weren't running off again. Tony would happily don a tutu and learn ballet with child if it meant that the pair would stay.

"Actually we might have a problem with enrolling you, I have no papers proving your existence," Bruce realised.

"How have you gotten through border checks then?" Tony asked.

"Illegally," Bruce stated the obvious with a raised eyebrow.

"How did you adopt him then?" the billionaire rolled his eyes at Bruce's statement, feeling that he had walked into that one.

"Technically I haven't, in India people just accepted my word and we avoided any government figure that might question me and check it up," Bruce admitted.

"Then that is the first thing we are going to fix," Tony said decisively. "JARVIS, bring up any paperwork we would need to fill out to get this ball rolling."

" _Certainly sir, shall I also get your lawyers ready to have this filed as quickly as possible?"_

"Yes good idea, if we can have this done before the press get hold of it then we can seal out any potential relatives that try to force him to go back to them. Pull up the relevant citizenship papers too and we can get started on that as well," Tony replied, his head already directed at the electronic tablet in his hand. He missed the worried look on Mateo's face at the mention of relatives trying to claim him.

With the combined power of all Tony's lawyers the adoption was rushed through, and two evenings later all the members of the Avengers gathered in the kitchen of Stark Tower to bear witness to the signing of the adoption papers. Mateo had known very little information of his proper identity, only that he was probably born near the end of July and thought he was six when he had met Bruce. The two of them had usually celebrated Mateo's birthday at the beginning of July to save confusion, and so Tony used that to create the official paperwork that they needed for the adoption. Forging a birth certificate was not hard for the billionaire genius and in no time at all he had created a convincingly original record for Mateo, and soon Mateo Banner nee Smith was toasted by the six most famous and celebrated people of the world.

A careless comment from Thor about family traditions on Asgard soon had the male Avengers arguing over the human tradition of assigning Godparents. Pepper was voted as godmother as she was not likely to end up in life-threatening situations like Natasha, and so was likely to be the safest option to still be around if she was needed to fulfil her duties. Who the godfather was going to be took an hour to decide, as the men were a lot more vocal and argumentative during the decision process. Natasha had bowed out quite when they decided that Pepper was the better choice, but the male Avengers were less inclined to give in so easily.

Thor seemed to be the most reliable bet, but should he be called to take up the mantle as King of Asgard he would be unable to be there for Mateo. Clint was in the same position as Natasha in that he lived with the most risk of being in danger on missions. Steve had the better personality of the two remaining candidates that would be more conducive to raising a child, but if anyone really wanted to get their hands on Mateo then they could probably bring up his confusion with modern day life as a sign of psychosis and have Mateo taken away by force. So the only option was Tony, as he had the financial and political clout to force anything he wanted to happen.

The other Avengers were looking slightly put out at the decision as Pepper and Tony accepted their roles as godparents. Mateo helped to cheer them up by announcing that he was making everyone else aunt and uncles so that they were still part of his family. Clint immediately perked up at that and he declared that he was going to be the uncle that led him astray, whilst Natasha sighed and gave him a look that obviously said she was the one that was going to stop him.

Bruce had watched the interaction from the side-line and was rather surprised by the turn of events. He was certainly pleased that there was such a large and formidable family formed to protect his son from any threat the world could throw at him. And seeing the group together interacting with his son helped settle the worried feeling that had been plaguing him ever since he had agreed to stay in the US; even if he was threatened at least Mateo would be protected by people that would and could tear apart a city to find him and keep him safe.


	19. Chapter 19 - Living the Stark Life

**A/N: Right here is the latest update, I've had to rush a bit to get it out in time whilst juggling family commitments. My sister goes into hospital today and her operation is tomorrow, so we've been keeping her occupied. As such I may not be responsive to any questions asked in reviews as I won't be around my laptop much (possibly). However feel free to drop me a PM, I'll see that much more clearly**

 **Story wise we have two more chapters of fillers before we move on again, you might find it boring but I enjoy the filler bits as a chance to try to expand characters! Thanks again to all reviews/favourites/follows!**

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 **Chapter Nineteen – Living the Stark Life**

Once the minor modifications had been made to Stark Tower, or Avengers Tower as the media had started to call it, Bruce and Mateo were given a floor as Tony had promised. The entire floor space easily outstripped the combined area of all their past houses they had had they decided, and for a few days they experienced a mild case of claustrophilia. After about a week Mateo found himself at ease with his huge room, which had been helped by Tony urging him to choose a colour scheme for it and then paying for extra furnishings.

Mateo now had a room painted in a soft sunset orange with a cream and brown flecked carpet. Tony had seemingly immediately picked up on the theme without being told, and had the bed replaced with a wooden four poster bed with genuine Indian drapes, had Indian patterns painted around the doorways, and bought a wide variety of decorations for the room. Mateo had been over the moon when he was allowed back in his room after Tony had gone on a painting spree, and he had had to bite back a laugh when Bruce had scolded the man for hanging two crossed Tulwar and a Dhal shield on the wall. Tony had won the argument by pointing out every inhabitant of the building had weapons, two more hung on the wall was not going to make a difference.

Tony seemed to have gone to the same amount of effort for Bruce's room too, and it had a very similar style apart from it being ocean blue with gold swirling patterns across the ceiling. Both had been dragged shopping by an eager Pepper, and less willing Tony, and their wardrobes were now full of clothes for any occasion. Tony had only agreed to go along without arguing by striking a compromise and took Mateo shopping for a variety of construction toy sets and a stack of books. Although Mateo had no idea if he would ever need the five bags of toys he now had it made his room look less empty.

Their shared areas were just as incredible as their rooms, with a large open plan living room and kitchen, as well as a guest room on their floor. Seeing as neither of them expected it to be used often they decided to fill the wall space with shelves and started a mini library with the books they had carried with them. Over the first few days they noticed how other odd books started to appear amongst the dog eared copies of myths, poetry, and science books. They never spotted Tony on their floor, but Mateo wouldn't have been surprised if the man was trying to find more ways of making their stay more enjoyable so that they wouldn't leave.

Steve had also accepted a floor once Tony had worn him down, and he had moved in a few days after Bruce and Mateo. His arrival was a bit of a surprise for everyone considering how well he had gotten on with Stark, but Mateo and Bruce just rolled with it. Although the man had a flat already thanks to SHIELD, Bruce assumed that Tony was worried the man would refuse to leave the 1940s unless forced to. Also forcing him to move in and interact with others was probably Tony's convoluted way of showing he cared.

Steve and Tony didn't often interact as the latter was often at business meetings or in his workshop even once they started living in the same building. However on the occasions they were all in the same room together it was obvious that their initial hostilities had mellowed somewhat. Tony could still be immature and argumentative, and Steve could still be a stickler for politeness and formality. However both of them seemed to try to cut the other some slack and the tension between them slowly eased.

Steve was often a little baffled about the new technology of the twenty first century and seemed rather ashamed of the fact, so would often avoid the labs and anything technological. However Mateo was in the same boat with half the gadgets found in Stark Tower, and soon managed to get the man to accompany him to go talk to Bruce or Tony to find out what things did. The ploy helped both get to grips with technology whilst getting better acquainted with the other two Avengers. Bruce was often better at explaining in a way Steve and Mateo could understand, but Tony knew the intricacies of his technology. So it ended up being a good exercise for the billionaire in trying to be more cohesive and patient when he spoke to the pair.

Tony had also badgered Clint and Natasha about moving in as well, and although they were assuming they would regularly be off on missions they had moved in. It seemed that they mostly did so grudgingly it was kind of obvious they wanted to take advantage of the amazing accommodation that was being offered to them for free. Mateo hadn't even slept in his bed on the Helicarrier, but if it was as hard as it had looked then he wouldn't have hesitated on moving home to escape permanently sleeping on one.

What also hadn't helped the situation was that the footage of the battle had been aired globally so the two agents were finding it hard not being on missions as regularly as they were used to. Clint was also being forced to undergo psych evaluations to ensure Loki had not caused any serious psychological damage. As a result the two were spending more time than they first assumed at the tower. Tony had seemingly planned for this, and had had a shooting range and gym/sparring room built in a basement level under the garage that he just happened to have spare.

Both of the assassins had been surprised by the facilities when Tony had taken them both, unwillingly, on a tour of the tower. But the installations worked well as the pair remained happily engaged in training. Bruce had retold the story of Tony madly designing and constructing both the shooting range and gym in time for Barton and Romanoff's arrival. Apparently he had been worried that without sufficient distraction he could be under threat of mauling by the easily irritated redheaded assassin. Bruce hadn't wanted to correct him and had let Tony spend a few days building the machinery for the rooms, as it gave him some space from the energetic billionaire.

The first few days after everyone had moved in to live in the tower was admittedly a little awkward as everyone tried to dance around each other and settle in. Although they had worked well as a team to stop the Chitauri, there was little in the way of obvious similarities or connections between the individual members of the group. Tony and Bruce bonded over science, while Clint and Natasha were already very close from many missions where they had had each other's backs. Steve seemed pretty nervous to interfere with the established friendships, while no one knew how to keep up with Tony and Bruce if they started on one of their discussions. So Mateo, who had seen the problem already, decided to try to help out.

To start with he learnt the layout of the vents within the tower, and then he purposefully went to find Clint. The archer had made a few nests within the vents, seemingly as his refuge away from everyone, and Mateo was lucky when he found the man after a few minutes searching. He felt a bit bad for intruding on the man's privacy, he hadn't been told but it was obvious that Clint was struggling with his actions under Loki's control. Although he had kept it together to fight the Chitauri you couldn't fail to see the bags under his eyes, and the pale and drawn look on his features. The vents and nests were his way of being hidden and safe, but close to others so he could see day to day life. But Mateo had a plan to help that, he hoped, so he needed Clint to come out.

"Hey squirt, I told you that the vents are mine," he said half in jest.

"Well you can hardly turf me out if you can't catch me," Mateo said with a grin of challenge.

"That's a bold challenge," Clint smiled back.

Then the pair were off scrambling through the vents. What Mateo may have gained in being small enough to easily manoeuvre through the metal maze Clint made up for in sheer strength enabling him to barrel along propelled by his limbs. The race was almost evenly matched when it came down to it, and Mateo grinned in exhilaration as they slithered down straights, rattled around corners, scaled vertical shafts, and slammed down others as the chase covered all of the communal floors. The Avengers at work within the tower they were slightly confused by the loud banging and shouting that emanated from the ceiling and walls, and more than one of them were concerned enough to reach for their weapons.

Steve, who was adequately armed with just his fists anyway, had approached the grille to the vent in his living room as the sounds of clanging and shouting got louder. He had been sketching memories of his old life when the noise attracted his attention. Although there were various other people in the building that he could talk to when he got lonely Steve had found himself becoming ever more reluctant to leave his level to find people. The view was amazing and the selection of books promised to keep him entertained for hours, and leaving his apartment level meant having to interact with gadgets and technology that he was baffled by. The rattling and banging coming from the ceiling was a new noise, one that Steve hadn't heard before in his week of living at the tower. So despite his better judgement he put down his sketchpad and walked cautiously over to the source of the sound.

Suddenly the soldier was almost barrelled off his feet by the small body which fell out and into his arms. Mateo was slightly dusty from the vents, red cheeked from exertion and exhilaration, and was laughing hard enough to be almost in tears.

"Alright alright I give up Hawkeye! The vents are yours," Mateo gasped.

"That's right, and don't you forget it," Clint's sweaty face appeared a moment later. "Oh, hello Cap!"

"What are you both doing?" Steve asked in amusement, still holding the laughing child.

"Mateo foolishly challenged me for ownership of the vents and he lost," Clint glared in mock severity at the boy.

"So that was all the banging," Steve said in realisation.

"Yes, sorry about that, we may have gotten carried away," Mateo stopped laughing and tried to look contrite. However his shining eyes showed that he was still far too amused to feel remorse yet.

"As long as the Hulk doesn't suspect an attack we will be fine," Steve pointed out.

"You give Dad too little credit, his tolerance and control is really very good," Mateo insisted.

"How many times have you met the Hulk? He seemed to be pretty comfortable with you," Clint asked curiously as he clambered out of the air vent.

"Erm, about three maybe? Dad almost lost it once in India a few months after we had met and that's when I learnt properly about the Other Guy. He came out to protect me when we were in Brazil when I was about nine, and again once in Africa when a storm triggered some kind of flashback. The Other Guy at first seemed confused when I wasn't running away screaming on both occasions. But then he curled around me to protect me from the storm, and that pretty much set the tone for our relationship. Bruce is still in there when the Other Guy takes over, but he is severely suppressed. Strong emotions get through though, like his protectiveness of me and now you guys probably," Mateo had to think about his relationship with the other half of his dad.

"I thought that protective streak may have been new, he did not seem very concerned about looking after Natasha when he got loose on the Helicarrier," Steve bit back, still angry at the Hulk's actions.

"He was under a severe amount of stress without an obvious way out, he hasn't been that bad in a while. We were in Brazil the last time the Other Guy reacted so badly… I think it is the guns pointed at him that causes that," Mateo shrugged, not pleased with how the conversation was going.

"What happened in Brazil?" Clint asked.

"We had moved into a very run down favela that had a huge problem with drugs and virtually no medical presence to help them. Anyway, Dad started treating people like he always did, accepting what people could spare and working with what he could afford. After a while the cartel that was running in the neighbourhood was not impressed with his philanthropic work as it was giving people hope that things could improve. They lured us to a warehouse where apparently someone had been injured and needed help. The boss tried to force Dad to either work for him or to pay protection money, and then he had the brilliant idea of getting one of his goons to put a gun to my head. The Other Guy _really_ didn't like that, and I don't think anyone apart from the two of us got out alive," Mateo explained.

"The Hulk really is rather possessive," Clint whistled.

"He is, if you get to know Bruce more. Plus then you will realise Dad is much more than a nervous shell fragilely containing the Hulk," Mateo glared at the pair disapprovingly.

"How do you suggest we go about doing that?" Steve asked, willing to give it a try.

"Dad loves cooking, and he is mean at playing poker. He has quite a sense of humour for practical jokes too once he knows you," Mateo suggested.

"We'll start cooking as a group then, if he emerges from the labs at any point," Clint promised.

"Leave that to me," Mateo smiled.

"We need to get to know you too better kid, you seem to be pretty fast and agile in the vents," Clint praised him. "Have you had much training to defend yourself?"

"I've had a few lessons here and there in Brazil and China mostly. But nothing major," Mateo replied in confusion.

"Then we are so taking you to the gym at some point. But for now, food," Clint smiled and lifted the child over his shoulder and marched to the lift.

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The mechanic and his scientist friend were broken out of their joined concentration by JARVIS. The two regularly ended up spending more time in the labs than they intended, and Bruce had only meant to be there for a couple of hours that day.

" _Sirs I have been asked to tell you to head to the communal kitchen immediately,"_ the AI said passively.

"What's wrong JARVIS?" Tony asked as he put down his pad.

" _I am unsure, I have merely been told to summon you both,"_ the British voice said vaguely.

The pair looked at each other in confusion. "Who is asking for us?"

" _Your son is, Dr Banner. He is rather insistent."_

"Mateo never makes a fuss unless it is urgent," Bruce explained as he took his glasses off.

"We better go then, we can leave the computer running through the results of this code," Tony tapped a few commands into the computer and followed after Bruce, who was already at the door.

There was no conversation in the lift up from the R&D labs as Bruce was worried about what had caused Mateo to request their presence. Tony knew that the man was worrying as he fidgeted with his shirt cuffs and was shuffling constantly, so he left the man alone to his thoughts. Despite most of the team being under the illusion that he had the social skills of a chimpanzee; Tony knew that there was nothing he could say that could possibly calm the man in the next twelve seconds. So instead of making the situation worse, he knew to keep quiet, which Bruce seemed to appreciate.

What the pair did not expect upon the doors of the lift opening was the sound of laughter and chatter. Bruce almost legged it from the lift to the kitchen and Tony was only a few metres behind him. They found Mateo sitting on the island counter top whilst Clint and Steve were rummaging through the cupboards.

"Are you alright Mateo?" Bruce asked as he approached.

"I realised there was something very wrong going on," Mateo said honestly.

"What's that?" the two newcomers froze as Tony voiced the thought they shared.

"You guys are sharing the same building but you barely interact or speak to each other, so I am fixing that. We are making dinner together and watching a film, or having a gaming marathon," Mateo announced.

"You didn't tell us about the film?" Clint said suspiciously.

"I thought it was obvious, you are the spy after all," Mateo pointed out.

"Kid you are almost too smart for your own good," Tony smiled. "But you dragged us out of the labs to cook? That might not have been so smart."

"It's a perfectly smart idea, Dad is an awesome cook," the boy grinned.

Tony looked as if he was going to argue with the idea of an entire evening wasted, but Steve and Clint silenced him with matching glares. It seemed that Mateo had more than just Bruce and Pepper wrapped around his fingers and they had not even lived there a month.

"What do people fancy?" Bruce asked.

"Dad can cook Chinese, Indian, Thai, Brazilian, and African dishes quite easily," Mateo narrowed down the options.

"Well we could probably manage curries or Chinese from the ingredients we have," Clint quickly glanced through the cupboards again.

"Stir fry and Thai curry alright for people?" Bruce suggested.

"We can make dumplings too," Mateo suggested.

Natasha and Pepper, who had been at SHIELD and Stark Industries respectively, arrived back at the tower roughly at the same time and managed to catch the same lift up to the communal floor. In the few days Natasha had lived there she had learnt that few people cooked regularly, but Clint would at least be in the kitchen at this time choosing which take away to order that day. Pepper, after hearing her plan to order take-out, decided to join in. They were both surprised when the lift door opened and they smelt an interesting mixture of spices and herbs.

"What's all this?" Pepper asked as they rounded the corner.

"Bonding night, Mateo had the idea that we cooked dinner together and then watched some movies or something. We liked the idea so we're doing it," Tony explained as he turned around.

Pepper stifled a laugh at the amount of flour in his hair, probably transferred there when he ruffled it in frustration. Clint and Steve were both lightly dusted, but most of the flour they wore was on their clothing. Mateo, who knelt on a stool to be level with the kitchen counter, and Bruce were completely clean and were failing to hide their amused smiles. She had no idea how the child had managed to get Tony out of his lab, but she was immediately determined to make the evening a success if it meant he was out of there more often.

"Well then, how can we help?" Pepper dropped her purse on the table next to the sofa and looked eagerly at the two chefs.

Natasha was similarly surprised with the situation, but more the fact that Clint hadn't yet gotten annoyed with Stark and shot him, and that Tony seemed to be very accommodating and _nice_ to everyone. At first she thought that the persona was being forced and that the billionaire would eventually crack and storm out. However as the last of the preparations were made and after the minimal amount of cleaning that Bruce insisted had been done the group of seven of them sat down to the meal.

"This is really good," Steve said as they all dug in.

"You sound surprised," Clint laughed. "You helped make it."

"It is because we helped out that I wasn't sure how good it would be," Steve admitted.

Bruce chuckled along with the rest of the table at that confession. Although most people around the table were reasonably proficient with chopsticks, Steve was slightly clumsy with them and Mateo kindly pointed out some ways that he could get better with them. The super soldier couldn't help but notice that Bruce and Mateo were using theirs as easily as a fork to scoop up rice and vegetables. Even Tony, who had explained that he had had a number of business trips to China, did not seem so skilled with the odd utensils.

"So how long did you two spend in China to get so good at cooking the food and using chopsticks?" Steve asked.

"About eight months in total, we had to wait while Mateo was booked into surgery and then had fully recovered before even considering moving. It was a good country, we were heading back there eventually after Calcutta stopped being a viable place to live," Bruce explained.

"Why did you need surgery?" Pepper asked worriedly.

"I had a scar on my forehead that I was quite self-conscious about, it was ugly and people could immediately identify me so I didn't want it. I also needed glasses and Dad suggested that we got that fixed at the same time," Mateo explained.

Pepper studied the boy intently, which made him slightly uncomfortable. "I like how you style your hair now, you wouldn't look good with a fringe hiding your face. And not having glasses is definitely a good thing as we can see your beautiful eyes clearly now."

Mateo blushed slightly and looked down at his food while a hand did travel up to ruffle his swept back hair self-consciously. But Pepper had been completely honest, and his hair brushed in quite a similar manner to his father suited him. Mateo mumbled a thanks for the compliment and she smiled at him before the conversation moved on.

"How did you afford that? Your wages can't have been that high in Nowhereistan," Tony asked.

"Through a lot of crafty saving and offering my services at the hospital while Mateo was recovering," Bruce said with a shrug. "I may not have been a registered doctor but after they caught me discussing a child's case with her parents they were prepared to ignore the technicalities to have me advising when needed. The rest of the time I was a janitor."

"How did you get the scar in the first place?" Steve asked, and then immediately wished he hadn't when Bruce winced.

"I got it in a car crash when I was small, my parents were drunk and crashed the car which killed them and gave me the scar," Mateo mumbled, barely loud enough for everyone to hear.

"I'm sorry Mateo, I really shouldn't have asked," Steve said as sincerely as he could to the child.

"You didn't know, and I was only one so I don't remember them," Mateo shrugged and tried to lighten the mood.

"Hang on, Bruce only found you when you were six didn't he? Where did you live between that?" Tony asked.

"Someone left me on the doorstep of my aunt and uncle's house so they were forced to take me in. They weren't happy with the arrangement," Mateo said shortly.

The way that Bruce's eyes were burning fiercely told the group that there may have been more to the situation than that. However the way that the man shuffled his chair closer to his son in comfort, and the anger slowly simmered in his eyes told the group clearly to drop the subject.

"What film do we want to watch tonight? Or is some kind of game tournament more your guy's things?" Natasha asked quickly. She did not miss the grateful glance Bruce shot her as the other men started arguing over movie genres.

Considering the discrepancy in age in the room they settled for Star Wars as a safe option for all involved. Steve had missed them as well whilst he was in the ice, so they started at the first one and managed to get through two. Clint ended up starting a popcorn fight with Tony across the room, and soon Mateo and Steve were joining in. The latter had seemed more inclined to tell them off but after glancing at Mateo's puppy dog eyes he had sighed and joined in instead.

It was when Natasha was hit in the face by a stray piece that the small game devolved into a massive war with Steve, Bruce and Mateo behind one sofa, Clint and Natasha behind theirs and Pepper and Tony behind the other. Clint and Natasha ended up being declared the winners by the time everyone had had enough because they had undoubtedly scored the most hits whilst being hit the least in return.

Bruce shepherded a rather reluctant Mateo down to his bed before returning to help clean up the worst of the popcorn and sorting the last of the food into containers to go into the fridge.

"You know Mateo's appearance in India shocked SHIELD, no one expected you to adopt a child," Natasha broached the subject first.

"I wouldn't have even contemplated the idea before meeting Mateo, but he had no one else to look after to him. I probably had every misgiving that was brought up by SHIELD but I felt that it was the lesser of the two evils to take him with me. I certainly tried twice as hard to keep the Other Guy under wraps from then on," Bruce said awkwardly in response to the almost accusation.

"What about his aunt and uncle?" Clint asked.

"They hated the boy, the rags he was dressed in and the complete lack of body fat he had when I found him attested to that," Bruce said angrily.

"He was abused?" Pepper asked, suddenly as angry as Bruce.

"Broken wrist, numerous old head injuries, healing ribs, his skin was littered with bruises where he had been grabbed and shoved, and welts on his back," Bruce spat out.

The room was silent as they absorbed the information, before a cracking sound snapped them out of it. Bruce had been holding a bowl in his hand, but now it was in quite a few pieces on the table and in his hand.

"Shit, sorry Tony," Bruce muttered as he quickly started to mop up his own blood with his handkerchief.

"Considering Big Green hasn't made an appearance I'd say the damage is rather minimal," Tony waved it off.

"How did he get to you from his relatives? I assume he is British from his accent, even if it is slightly diluted from your travels," Natasha asked.

"I honestly have no idea, he appeared in an alley thinking it was a dream. He never faded back to wherever he came from and had no way home, so I kept him with me," Bruce shrugged.

"He's a mutant?" Pepper suggested.

"Possibly, I'm not going to submit him to any kind of medical test unless I absolutely have to. But if more odd events occur then I shall see about contacting Professor Xavier for advice. That's only _if_ Mateo is agreeable to the idea," Bruce replied as Tony set about sorting out his hand.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Pepper or any of the other Avengers but Bruce wanted to keep Mateo's talents at least slightly secret, until they knew more about magic at least. For as long as possible Bruce was going to keep Mateo's magic a secret and let them believe the mutant theory.

"Where are his relatives?" Tony asked.

"Somewhere near London Mateo thinks, their name was Dursley and they had a son called Dudley so that should narrow it down. Why?" Bruce asked warily.

"I may do a little bit of research about them, it can't hurt to know who the enemy is," Tony smiled chillingly.

Bruce glanced around the room, and was incredibly touched to see that everyone seemed to have the same opinion as Tony. It may not have happened how Mateo had planned, but the group was certainly united through more than just work now.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Bruce had been slightly worried but grateful when the super soldier and the two assassins offered to teach Mateo how to fight the day after the meal. However his boy had seemed eager as he followed the trio down to the sparring room for his first lesson, so Bruce let them carry on. Initially Bruce considered going down and watching them to ensure Mateo was not over exerted, but when the four of them re-emerged for lunch Mateo reassured him that the three adults were going very slowly with him. Steve commented on his surprise on how fast the kid was picking up the material they were teaching him and promised that over the next few months they would try to cover as much as they could. However they would only go at a pace that Mateo could handle, not one he wanted to go at.

Tony joined in with educating Mateo, and when the boy wasn't in the sparring room or shooting range he could possibly be found in Tony's workshop learning how various machines worked. Although he had been adamant that Mateo was not allowed to touch his suit, Tony did bring up 3D interactive schematics for the boy to study and learn from. When he was busy, Tony would set up Mateo on the internet and got him researching important inventions through the ages and how they impacted human development.

Even Pepper was found talking with the child regularly. Although she was more often tied up with Stark Industries business, at breakfast or in the evenings the two could be found talking. Sometimes their conversations were simple things like books Mateo might like, or what was making the news that day. However Tony had almost wanted to stage an intervention when he caught Mateo learning about business management from Pepper one morning.

Overall life within the tower was surprisingly harmonious, despite their varied and sometimes conflicting personalities the Avengers seemed determined to make the situation work. Thor had left a week after the adoption celebration which left the tower surprisingly quiet, however whilst he was still there the six Avengers tried their best to forge bonds between themselves. Their attempts sometimes were rather unconventional, but when you had six heroes in the same building it was unsurprising that their antics got out of hand at times. They were at least sensible enough to not risk death or permanent maiming, but Pepper did occasionally find herself acting like a mother and scolding those responsible.

However despite their antics inside the tower, not many of them attempted to venture out because of one problem that plagued them all sitting right on the front doorstep. The media had been surprisingly persistent in camping outside the steps of the Avengers Tower waiting for shots of the mysterious occupants. Tony was well known and freely came and went by car to any engagements he had booked. The others encountered a little more difficulty as they really did not relish the idea of being in the spotlight.

Tony told them that there were numerous attempts to sneak into the Tower, and JARVIS was fending off multiple hackers a day as people tried to get any information on the Avengers. Thankfully the security system that Tony had installed around the Stark system and buildings meant that no one who attempted to break in had any chance of gaining any kind of information. However Mateo was starting to feel claustrophobic staying inside most of the time, going out onto the balcony that extended from the communal level was not the same as walking the streets. He threw himself into the drills that Steve taught him, and started skipping like Natasha told him to so that his footwork sped up. Bruce noticed how Mateo was starting to get restless, something he had only seen a couple of times when they had been laying low in other countries. There had only been a couple of occasions when they had really had to keep hidden until the heat died down, and Mateo had hated that the most out of any experience.

"He needs to go out and to do something, Mateo isn't used to being cooped up for such long periods of time. Everyone's attempts to entertain him have been brilliant, they really have, but I think he really wants to see the city. I promised him we could see some of the sights when we first came to America," Bruce explained as he helped Tony with one of his projects.

"Well we shall take him out to see the sights then," Tony replied as if it was that easy.

"But that would mean risking him being mobbed by the media, I don't want him to be ripped to shreds," Bruce said worriedly. "He's a child who still has quite a large dislike of too much attention, the six of you were quite a shock to his system anyway. How do you think he would react to a crush of reporters?"

"I'm afraid when they are in a mood like this they aren't going to go away until they get something," Tony spoke with experience.

"So if we go out then they will go away?" Bruce asked hopefully.

"Perhaps, but I think that they could be here for a while," Tony said slowly.

Bruce sighed unhappily at that. Tony looked rather thoughtful for the next few minutes, then smiled. "I've got it, I'll do an interview."

"An interview, what, like for a newspaper?"

"Better, I have a few friends in the television industry who will do a fair job of portraying us in a good light," Tony grinned and pulled out his phone.


	20. Chapter 20 - An Interview

**A/N: Aaaaand it's Friday again! Seriously where is time going? I think I said a while ago, but here's the warning again – I will be away on Monday graduating. So the chapter update will be Tuesday evening (UK time) once I get in from Cubs. Hopefully after that I shall be back to a normal schedule of posting! My sister will be out of hospital too hopefully on Tuesday so no more travelling an hour each way to the hospital to visit her.**

 **As always every review/favourite/follow is appreciated even if I don't get back to you.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty – An Interview**

Two nights later Bruce and Mateo were sat with Steve and Clint on various sofas in the communal living room watching a chat show host called Ellen introduce her line-up for the evening. Tony had insisted that she was the best person for the job he had in mind, and had disappeared off that morning wearing one of the most expensive looking suits Bruce had seen him in.

The huge television displayed everything with crystal clarity, and for the first time Bruce understood why Tony put so much energy into his appearance every time he was to be on camera. The group sat through a few annoying interviews with pretentious musicians and singers, with numerous advert breaks in between. Bruce checked his watch and realised that the show was only halfway through when Tony was introduced, obviously they thought that what he had to say was worth twenty minutes of interview time.

" _And last but by no means last tonight we have an extra special guest tonight, a certified genius and philanthropist, one of the six Avengers, ladies and gentlemen let's hear it for Tony Stark!"_ Ellen practically had to shout over her overenthusiastic audience.

The screaming as Tony appeared around the corner was painfully loud and incoherent even for the four sitting around the living room. Mateo did not envy their friend who actually had to stand in the studio and endure the raucous shouting without wincing. Tony however appeared to love it, he flashed his trademark peace sign and strutted over to the sofas to hug Ellen before sitting on the cream sofa like it was a throne. The image was completely at odds at the relaxed man they had shared a meal with at the beginning of their time together at the tower, and Bruce realised that even he had been duped into not realising just how many faces Tony had.

" _Well, Tony Stark, this is a very surprising interview I have to say,"_ Ellen started.

" _It was a bit of a spur of the moment decision, but it was do this interview or play another round of hide and seek with two master assassins, so here I am. There is only so many times you can play that game before you run out of hiding places,"_ Tony smiled disarmingly.

" _Hang on, you play hide and seek in that tower together?"_ Ellen laughed.

" _When they aren't out on missions there is nothing Hawkeye and Black Widow love more than training or mucking around. Seriously, we lost Hawkeye for an entire day once because he was so good at hiding. I had to use the intercom and tempt him out with the promise of doughnuts to get him to appear. Oh, and a warning for all the viewers, do not promise Hawkeye doughnuts without actually having them with you or you may face being thrown off a building,"_ Tony chuckled along as the crowd erupted into laughter.

"He's good," Mateo said as they watched.

Bruce hummed in agreement but refrained from answering as Ellen continued.

" _So, is there anything you can tell us about your partners? I have heard that the Paparazzi have been camping on your doorstep for the last month,"_ Ellen asked.

" _Well obviously I have to keep the identity of some of my teammates a secret, but I have the permission of the others to talk freely about them. So I can spill a lot of secrets while they aren't here to stop me,"_ Tony smiled evilly.

"If he isn't joking then I am going to use him as target practice next time," Clint growled from his sofa.

" _What can you tell us about Captain America?"_

" _The Cap is quite a nice chap, we had our disagreements at the start but that was because he is still getting to grips with this century. He fell into the ice when there was rationing, then he woke up to a culture that has more disposable income a month than he earned previously in a year. But he takes it in his stride, he is never down for long and definitely he is the heart of the team. We have a few disagreements still, that's the problem with conflicting personalities, but overall we all get on well. If there is anything going on then you can be sure he will join in, even in popcorn wars, you just need to give him the right nudge. He's not a bad artist either, we keep finding pencils all over the place,"_ Tony explained. _"I'm tempted to staple the next one I find to his hand so he can't put it down."_

The crowd chuckled at that joke, and Mateo noticed Steve relax as his piece was over.

" _Moving on, it must have been a shock to come face to face with a mythological God?"_

" _Thor was an even bigger surprise than finding out that the Cap was still alive. I'm afraid I haven't been able to socialise with him as much as I would like but he returned home a few days after the battle to ensure Loki was securely contained. However he has an even harder time understanding 'Midgardian' culture than the Cap did. He adores Pop-tarts though, we can eat breakfast and then find him wandering around with a box of them five minutes later. Apparently they aren't big on sweet pastries on Asgard, so whenever he is around you can guarantee he can be found with a box nearby. The six of us sometimes have movie nights and while the rest of us eat popcorn he has a couple of boxes of them, it's madness."_

" _And then there is Hawkeye and Black Widow, what are you allowed to reveal about them?"_

" _Like I said, a lot of their files are classified so I cannot reveal their names or anything majorly important. But Hawkeye, as you have seen, is an amazing shot. We installed a shooting range in the Tower and I have yet to see him miss a single shot, even if he and the target are moving. In desperation I tried to push him over once and he still managed to hit the bulls eye. His accuracy gets a bit annoying when you are about to eat the last waffle and he shoots it out of your hand though."_

The crowd gasped a bit at that, and Tony was quick to explain.

" _Hawkeye has the worst sweet tooth I have ever encountered, I seriously wasn't joking about having to use doughnuts as bribery. I was unlucky enough to find this out when I tried to eat the waffles that he had bought. I was moving from the cupboard to the microwave, and he was still coming down the stairs from the balcony when he saw me. The shot missed my head by about four inches and pinned the waffle to the wall. So I've learnt to keep a cupboard of waffles and one of Pop-tarts to keep him and Thor happy at all times."_

" _It sounds like the Avengers Tower is a bit of a lethal place to be,"_ Ellen observed.

" _We muck around and rub each other up the wrong way, but we know how far we can push. Like I said, we play hide and seek, have movie nights, eat meals together, blow stuff up together. We are like a huge dysfunctional family."_

All four men in the room stilled at that thought, but Mateo noticed that none of them objected to the idea.

" _Black Widow must be one patient woman to deal with the five of you all in one building,"_ Ellen joked.

" _She is as bad as the rest of us, she steals my coffee in the morning and won't hesitate to chase you if you think it is a good idea to push her off the sofa if she is engrossed in a TV programme. I did that once and had to jump off the building to escape her."_

Once again Tony was interrupted by the gasps and screams of the mostly female crowd who were obviously horrified at the idea of their idol being threatened.

" _Obviously I survived!"_ Tony smiled winningly at the women. _"Luckily I had a prototype suit that can track me, and it worked in time to save me from splattering the side walk. I had to come home with a box of truffles and some wine to appease her after that. Widow has the most killer death stare out there, seriously you can feel a chunk of your soul die when she glares at you. But she is an amazing piano player, we've challenged her to play various pieces and she is yet to make a mistake with any of them."_

" _So you have music evenings, play games and watch movies, it sound like an idyllic lifestyle when you aren't busy off saving the world,"_ Ellen chipped in.

" _In some ways it is, I am glad that the Avengers worked out and that we can spend this time together. However we have to be ready in case we are ever called on. Our resident assassins have been called out a few times to go on undercover intel missions, and it is not nice to worry whether they will make it back. Pretty much everyone has nightmares too about what we have had to face, so it can be a bit sombre at times at breakfast,"_ Tony said, and the honesty of his words drawing small noises of sympathy from many people watching.

" _Everyone has nightmares?"_

" _It might sound surprising that even assassins and Gods can have nightmares, but considering the variety of backgrounds we all came from and the types of life we have led it is not surprising that nightmares occur. Whether they are about betrayal, or death, or fire I don't know, but I do know that we all have skeletons in our closets that we regret immensely. We respect each other's privacy and let people talk only if they want to, it's become common practice to give the person in question control of the coffee pot at breakfast and first dibs on whatever is cooked for breakfast,"_ Tony shrugged.

" _Can I ask what yours are about?"_ Ellen pried gently.

For a while Mateo thought that he wouldn't reply, he knew that Tony was hardly the most open man even with the Avengers so to open up on a chat show would be a miracle.

" _A mixture of things, mostly my time in Afghanistan, but recently my short trip through the portal has been added to that. Suffocation is not something I recommend."_

" _There are a few sceptics who think that the portal was merely a large CGI stunt, but it is pretty obvious that they are wrong,"_ Ellen said.

" _If it was a CGI stunt then whatever they managed to slip me gave one hell of a hallucination. And I wouldn't recommend anyone else trying to fly through a CGI portal, unless you want an eye-opening experience and a brush with death along with it."_

" _We all saw the footage of the Hulk catching you as you fell back to earth, but no one has seen him since. Where is he being hidden?"_ Ellen steered the conversation back to a topic that many wanted addressing.

" _Oh he is with us, don't you think people would have spotted Mean Green way more often than he has been if he was like that all the time? This is the bit that I had to have a long chat with someone about, as obviously the Hulk's normal ego rather likes his anonymity. However Bruce decided it was easier if he let me talk about him openly."_ Tony said.

Mateo stiffened next to his Dad and looked at him cautiously. They both knew that revealing his identity to the world would mean the end of their relative anonymity in any country for a good length of time, possibly forever. Bruce was looking slightly tense but not overly worried, so Mateo took his cue from the man and settled down against his chest again to watch the interview.

" _We have a rather poor photo taken of the group of you heading back to the tower on the afternoon of the battle, are you saying the guy in casual clothing is called Bruce, and is also the Hulk?"_

The grainy photo in question flashed up on the screens around the set, and the camera feed was replaced by the same image for a few seconds. The photographer that had taken it was obviously quite far away and using the greatest zoom that he could. It certainly wouldn't win any awards or be used as a promotional photo, but you could pretty much make out the detail of each person's face. Thankfully Mateo was behind a car at the time so he had been spared from the photograph, but if Tony was discussing Bruce it was only a matter of minutes before he was mentioned. Mateo wasn't sure whether he was excited or terrified of possibly becoming a topic for debate like his father.

" _Yep. Bruce Banner used to be a genius scientist working in gamma research and was working on a prototype contract for the government. Something went wrong during the testing phase, and apparently it was touch and go for a while, but now that he has stabilised he turns into the Jolly Green Giant whenever he is pushed too far. It's surprising he has managed to stay mostly in the shadows for the last ten years despite people like General Ross of the US Army hunting him constantly."_

" _Why would he do a thing like that? The amount of resources wasted must be astronomical,"_ Ellen asked in confusion.

" _Oh yes, I've calculated that the number of people, amount of ammunition, and diversity of machinery used by the man to hunt Bruce, who is one of the biggest pacifists I know, probably costs at least five million each year. Ross seems to think that the Hulk is an abomination that must be put down, or that he should be dissected until his secrets have been revealed so that Ross can command an army of Hulks. I have had access to some rather private files that details the treatment Bruce received whilst he was held captive by the sadist for two months. It is unsurprising that Bruce has taken to hiding in third world countries when one of the leading men of the army treated him in a way that makes what the Spanish Inquisition look like toddlers playing at the game. It was only because we needed his scientific expertise to stop Loki that Bruce decided to leave his little pocket of isolation and come home."_

" _What has he been doing if he has been hiding?"_

" _Helping people of course. Apparently Bruce has been working as a doctor for those who could not afford medical care so he's become our go-to guy if we've had an accident in the tower. He is rather useless at taking care of himself, he usually uses superglue if he himself gets an injury rather than actually using medical resources. But if he sees one of us with an injury then the whole first aid kit comes out and he'll ensure any cut is clean and bandaged securely before we are allowed to leave the room. He is the biggest mother hen out there, it's good to know he has our backs."_

" _I know that many people are probably rather worried that the Hulk is able to walk around freely as a man, do you have anything to say to them?"_

" _I do, and that's this: Why does a man like Bruce scare you when I don't? Bruce has spent the last ten years of his life living in shacks, spending every single penny on helping others and saving lives to atone for the guilt he feels when he is pushed too far and the Other Guy comes out. Remember I used to be called the Merchant of Death? I have more blood on my hands than Bruce has, and yet I am welcomed to any social situation that I want simply because my line of work pays more. The last two times the Hulk was unleashed in America before the battle was because Bruce was attacked by those who thought that the Hulk was a mindless beast that needed taking down. I owe my life to that 'beast' and I would have no fear in placing my life in his hands again and again. His kid certainly hasn't had any negative effects from being raised by an apparent monster so why worry about him?"_

" _Bruce Banner has a child?"_ Ellen had obviously not expected that, and the audience rumbled uncertainly with that information.

" _Yeah he does, hang on I think I have a photo,"_ Tony flicked through his phone until he found the right picture and showed it to Ellen before standing and walking over to a camera so they could get a close up.

The one he had chosen was of Bruce and Mateo when they had just officially moved into the tower and had ended up falling asleep on the sofa whilst watching _Lord of the Rings_. It showed Bruce sitting against the arm of the sofa, one hand propping up his head whilst the other was slung around Mateo who had ended up curling up against his side. Mateo was also covered by a blanket, but there was enough of his face and head showing for people to know exactly what he looked like. It seemed that the audience approved of the picture from the noises they were making. Clint chuckled at the pair who were shifting uncomfortably at the fact they were both being called 'cute' by the talk show hostess, and a large proportion of the audience. Once he was certain the camera had seen the picture for long enough Tony put his phone away and carried on with the interview.

" _Mateo was an orphaned child Bruce encountered on his travels, and he adopted to save him from the streets. Sure that child may not have had the most pampered of upbringings, but he certainly was not abused by the man you all seem to think is a raving savage. I've watched Bruce interact with Mateo and I have no doubt that Bruce has done everything within his power during their time together to ensure Mateo had as much as Bruce could provide for him. I'd say that without a shadow of a doubt Mateo has had a better childhood with Bruce than even I had with my parents,"_ Tony said passionately.

" _How does Mateo react to being amongst the Avengers? Obviously you guys are world known heroes, but you are also soldiers that have dark pasts,"_ Ellen asked.

" _When we all first moved in together it was Mateo that enabled everyone to bond better than I had expected by dragging us all together to socialise and teach him. Although the kid has numerous skills and talents, he hasn't had much of a grounding in such things as video games and movies. So we have all ended up banding together to teach him anything we know whilst getting him, and Thor and the Captain at the same time, up to date on modern technology. Although our options are a bit limited with films: we can't watch spy films as the two assassins pick them apart, sci-fi are becoming difficult as Bruce pulls apart the science behind them, war movies are often unrealistic according to the Cap, and Mateo will quickly point out any language or cultural mistake in a film if he has ever encountered the region before. I think we have ended up being limited to fantasy, comedy or romance. But you can imagine how well that last one goes down!"_ Tony had to pause as the audience chuckled loudly at that thought. Once they had finished he carried on.

" _Mateo is actually the reason I am here now. Bruce and he have lived in at least ten different countries south of the equator over the last four years alone to avoid people like General Ross. And although this means that Mateo is fluent in numerous languages and can recite random facts about any culture, it makes this is his first time in America. Now, when in America it is a crime not to visit New York, especially if you are living right in the middle of it. But the child hasn't been able to leave the tower with his father for fear of the press and those who would attempt to harm Bruce. The only crime bigger than not visiting New York is the crime of keeping a child sealed inside a building because he is afraid of the people waiting on the doorstep. And that should tell you something of Bruce and the Hulk, if a child is more afraid of the Paparazzi than the Other Guy then who should you really be worried about?"_

" _It sounds like Mateo has found a very loyal father and extended family,"_ Ellen voiced.

" _Even in the month that we have known each other I have learnt to trust these people more than some people I have known for years. Mateo declared that we were all his unofficial uncles and aunts, which shows how close we have become and how accepting Mateo is of everything. We may be a screwed up bunch of soldiers, gods, assassins, and scientists, but I don't doubt that any of us would allow harm to come to our comrades. And I would class public harassment with that, my lawyers are very good and I wouldn't hesitate to press charges on anyone I deem as harassing my friends,"_ Tony said forcefully.

The crowd went wild at that and were cheering away. Tony smiled at them and the camera before pulling out his phone. Ellen looked at him when he chuckled and he showed her his phone.

" _Sorry I know it is rude, but I just got a rather amusing text,"_ Tony explained.

" _Seeing as we can't get the cameras on this I'll read it out, if you don't mind,"_ Ellen waited for Tony's nod before continuing. _"It's from Hawkeye, and it says 'Your speech almost has me in tears, so much so I may have to use that_ fabulous _Iron Man t-shirt you got me as a hanky. P.S. I am still not letting you anywhere near my maple syrup stash'."_

" _I told you we have a laugh together,"_ Tony grinned.

" _Now we have a few minutes left to kill, so I have a few audience questions here. As you know everyone in the audience is given a sheet as they come in that they can write questions on and I pick out my favourites. So, Tony, who would win in a paintball death match?"_ Ellen asked first.

" _Hmm, well Hawkeye and Black Widow are the best shots out of all of us without a doubt, but it depends if we are allowing our special talents into the fight. The Hulk is surprisingly speedy once he gets going, and no one can get past the Cap's shield. I'd narrow it down to Hawkeye and the Cap based on skill and defence, but beyond that I couldn't guess,"_ Tony said thoughtfully.

" _Whose idea was it for all of you to live in the same tower?"_

" _That was mine, Bruce and Mateo had nowhere to go apart from disappearing back to some rural community halfway around the globe. It made sense for them to move in so that Bruce could return to doing the scientific experiments he is awesome at and Mateo could potentially take his exams when he reaches the right age. After they moved in it was just logical to extend the offer and have everyone nearby so we can react quicker instead of waiting for someone to turn up when we need to get somewhere in a hurry."_

" _Who would win out of a fight between the Hulk and Thor?"_

" _Neither would win, because by the time they got to the point that they may have worn down their opponent there wouldn't be a planet left to hold the fight on,"_

" _Who is the most domesticated out of all of you and what do they do?"_

" _Unsurprisingly, when you consider the company he keeps, it is Bruce that wins that title. Like I said he is like a mother hen when we are injured, and he has the most practice in looking after another person. I have to admit I get distracted and can end up living off of coffee without sleep for a few days if I get working in the labs, and Bruce has been known to drag me out to sleep and eat occasionally. Seeing as Bruce and Mateo have lived in numerous countries they can also cook pretty much any dish. Their cooking is quite often better than some take-outs I've eaten, so they usually use food as a type of bribery to get us all together in the evenings for a movie night. We try to help but after the first attempt Bruce gave up asking for help, I can burn a salad and Hawkeye usually ends up getting distracted and forgets what he is supposed to be doing with the vegetables,"_ Tony ended up getting quite a few laughs at that.

" _Ah talk of the devil, Hawkeye has told me to stop insulting him or he'll hide all of Thor's Pop-tarts and tell him I ate them,"_ Tony read another text.

" _We better move on then to our final question: what is the worst thing you guys have done as a team?"_

" _Hmm, it depends what you define as 'worst thing'… Within the tower the worst thing we did was play_ Risk _. You know, that board game where you get a few countries and some soldiers and you have to take over the world? Well we ended up having a few arguments and people ended up wearing their army's colours and actually forming alliances and territories on the residential floors of the tower and acting out the war with laser tag guns. That lasted for three days, Pepper was not amused at us._

" _Outside of the tower the stupidest Hawkeye, Thor and I did was see who would win a race. Thor can use Mjolnir to fly, I obviously have the Iron Man suit, and Hawkeye had a jet. I'm not sure how many army radar alerts we set off, or how many people called the police because of that. I can't remember who won as the telling off we got from Black Widow and Pepper kind of ruined the celebrations of the winner."_

" _Unfortunately that is all we have time for tonight, so a huge thank you to Tony Stark for shedding some light on his friends!"_ Ellen applauded and the audience joined in.

The credits rolled and the four in the living room breathed a sigh of relief. Mateo looked stunned that Tony had basically put himself through that for him, whilst Steve was grateful that Tony had not gone off on a rant about him. Clint was still chuckling about his text and was happy Tony had checked his phone. Bruce was anxious about whether that was the best thing to do, but now that it had been done he could only face the fallout and hope for the best.

"Let's hope it works," Mateo said as he looked up at his dad's troubled face.

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Thanks to Tony's not so subtle threat the three of them were able to leave the tower the next morning without so much as hint of any reporters being nearby. In celebration Tony took them on a whirlwind tour of the city, visiting as many places as possible that Mateo said that he wanted to see. They hailed a taxi and drove down Times Square, went to a view point to see Lady Liberty, bought lunch from a hotdog vendor at Central Park, and then spent the afternoon in the zoo. Although Mateo was unimpressed by the thought of keeping animals in cages, he was at least mollified by the obvious care given to the animals and enjoyed seeing some animals he had never heard of before.

The trio were recognised many times by the public throughout the day, but thankfully most kept their distance and left them to their day. A few did sum up the courage and spoke to Bruce, voicing their support and leaving before Tony decided to have them arrested. For Bruce it was an odd sensation to have someone else be the one that people feared, and he appreciated the lengths Tony had gone to in order to organise this day for Mateo. The child in question seemed rather nervous at some of the stares they received but Tony made the effort to keep his attention on other things where possible.

Mateo spent the entire journey home grinning and thanking Tony, and then in the evening everyone who met the boy ended up getting an earful of their day. But Clint and Steve put up with it and indulged the child, as they truly were starting to think of him as a nephew.

They ended up having a mini celebration a week later when Tony practically skipped into breakfast one morning and shoved an actual paper under Bruce's nose. The article that attracted the joy and glee was one on General Ross' 'retirement' from military service. Most people around the table were also of the opinion that the news would also mean that Bruce should get a reprieve from the US military at least. If he was safe from the authorities of America then he should be free to wander with Mateo, which everyone was joyful about. The ensuing celebrations ended up going on for most of that evening once Tony and Pepper were free from SI obligations.


	21. Chapter 21 - Letters

**A/N: So, after writing this I realised I had one major flaw in the timeline… In the books the letters are sent out in the last week of July. However I bungled and put some content in a later chapter that should come before this. Instead of trying to slot it back in (when I've already published the last chapter) I'm just going to have a tiny play with the timeline. So for the sake of this story the Hogwarts letters are sent out in the last week of June. To be honest only one month warning would not likely be enough for a muggle family to organise everything for their kid to go to Hogwarts.**

 **Also thanks for your patience with this being late, graduation was a blast!**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty One – Letters**

Albus stood and looked in anticipation at the list of students that were to receive their Hogwarts letters this year. On his desk lay a stack of sealed envelopes, a pile of unfolded and impersonalised letters. Between the two piles a quill floated in the air over blank envelopes. Rhythmically it dipped into the ink pot and fluidly wrote out each address for each child that was to join the school that year. The artefact had done its job for centuries and had never once been wrong in penning the right address onto each envelope. Normally Albus was not bothered about watching the show of magic, it had long ago grown old to him and he didn't need to know each student's home address.

However the Headmaster had been searching for five years a specific unknown location, and the home of a specific AWOL student. Five years of traipsing around the country looking for one child amongst thousands of magical ones, not to mention the millions of muggle ones. Now he would finally find out where Harry Potter had been hiding all these years, and he could finally bring him back to where he belonged.

Dumbledore had been only half paying attention to the names as they were written, his mind was still turning over the mystery of the Potter heir. He had registered and been surprised that Longbottom had gotten a letter, it was not a secret that his grandmother was quite unimpressed with him. He could normally entertain himself for many hours inspecting and playing with the multitude of gadgets he had dotted on every surface of his office, and today had been no exception. When the Quill got to writing the address of Malfoy Manor Albus turned and paid full attention to the writing.

As soon as the old wizard noticed it was writing out Harry Potter's letter he hurried around the desk to get the best view of the ink as it formed words. Although it easily wrote out the name of the recipient the carved feather hesitated. Normally it had no problem writing any address, it was imbued with magic and could sense those worthy of a place in Hogwarts if they lived in the eligible area. However for a Mr Harry James Potter it seemed almost unable to write further. A whole minute passed before it started to scribble, seemingly reluctantly, a very unusual address.

Albus snatched up the envelope as soon as it had magically floated off to the pile of finished letters to be sent. The address displayed was for an apartment in America, and the man could not understand how the child had gotten there. For a few minutes he entertained the idea that the child had accidentally apparated all the way across the Atlantic that Christmas night so many years ago, but he quickly dismissed that as impossible. It was much more likely that Harry had been adopted off the streets by an American on holiday in England. Whatever had happened, Albus would have to wait only a short while longer before he could ask the boy himself.

The wizard grabbed his cloak and waved his wand to turn a discarded piece of parchment into a portkey. His next act was to grab and throw a pinch of powder into the flames of his fire and fearlessly stepping into it. His destination was one of his privately owned houses that enabled portkey usage, and he wasted no further time before disappearing to the continent across the Atlantic Ocean.

He hadn't been to America in decades but he still remembered the general address for all continental portkeys. It was a room attached to the American Department of Magic, and as a result he had to give explain his trip to the country. Naturally he told a pack of lies about hunting down a valuable book for his private library and was soon on his way again. Even if Grindelwald and Voldemort had never threatened America, his reputation in stopping both men had gained him a lot of leeway in the States.

Once he was allowed to roam free it only took a small amount of careful concealment and some short apparition hops to find a suitable spot to spy on the written address. The place certainly looked expensive, and Albus worried that if Harry had been living there all the time then he would have a serious problem dealing with a spoilt brat. A child that threw tantrums if he didn't get his way would be no use in even assisting during a war, let alone be a reliable key player.

The building was built so that most of the outer walls were made of glass, and from his position Albus had a brilliant view into many of the floors. So before he acted he spent the time searching each window for signs of a child that could be his elusive quarry. As soon as the old wizard spotted the child moving around in the living room of the flat he moved into action and apparated from the tower opposite into the same room to confront the child.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Mateo hummed as he sat in the living room merrily trying to sketch out the skyline of the city before him. The last two months had been full of trips around the city with various members of the Avengers who had quickly become the aunt and uncles that Mateo had never known he needed. Bruce split his time between his son and the labs, as he and Tony were well on the way to creating a functional arc reactor that would run for at least twenty years. Mateo had enjoyed learning about what went into the design process but he mostly left them to it when the pair was in the middle of the crucial stages.

However long his father was in the labs for, Mateo never felt neglected as Bruce always ensured that he only worked eight hours a day maximum in the labs and that the rest of his day was free to be spent with Mateo. He also made it clear that Mateo was allowed into his labs and they could talk as he worked, so they needn't be separated at all. However usually during these work hours Mateo would either entertain himself or would follow after another Avenger and watch them train or received lessons. The outcome would usually be dependent on whether said Avenger had the time, which Mateo found they often made time for him to learn at least one thing each day. Today was one of the days where he planned to attempt to do some sketching and reading, so he had had a lazy start and was currently dressed in some lounging clothes with his hair still in a mess from the shower.

"Kiddo I have a present for you!" Clint called out as he stepped out of the lift.

Mateo popped his head up to see the archer on the other side of the couch and quickly tidied up his art equipment before he padded over to the man. Clint was, as usual, dressed in black and purple clothing with his quiver and bow slung over his shoulders. In one hand he held a long black case, which he passed over to Mateo once the boy was close enough. Mateo glanced curiously at Clint's face, but the archer wasn't giving anything away, so he carried it over to the kitchen table to open it.

Inside was another bow almost exactly like Clint's. The only difference was the thin purple, silver, blue, red, green, and gold stripes that were added onto the arms of the bow on either side of the grip. A quiver full of regular arrows was clipped onto the other half of the case.

"I saw that Tony had already decorated your room with two swords, so I thought adding a bow to your collection wouldn't make much difference," Clint said by way of explanation. "Plus you are getting very good with the practice bow and deserve your own."

"Are you sure Clint, this can't have been cheap," Mateo said worriedly.

"It cost me virtually nothing, I merely stole it from the Helicarrier supplies and then had the extra personal touches added," Clint reassured the boy.

Mateo smiled and hugged the man before carefully slipping the quiver on and pulling the bow from the case. "So the colours match to you Avengers? Gold must be for Tony, purple for you? Green for the Other Guy… silver for Thor, red for Natasha, and blue for Steve?"

"I know you are quite good with the equipment and tools downstairs, so I though you could make a project out of personalising yourself an arm guard. There is sizeable piece of leather under the bow's holder," Clint grinned with pride that Mateo had figured out the colours.

"Thanks Clint, this really is a brilliant gift," Mateo said happily.

"Well I heard about your favourite books so I thought it was only appropriate I get you hooked on archery. We can head to the range now and get you working on your aim," Clint suggested, still smiling with content.

Their bonding moment was interrupted by a loud crack that came from the direction of the television. Expecting there to be some problem with a broken window both males turned to look in the direction of the sound. Neither of them was expecting to actually end up staring at a very old man in bizarre clothing.

At first glance it looked like the man was wearing a vivid blue and yellow dress with half-moon spectacles and an almost idiotic smile on his face. He had long white hair that grew beyond the bottom of his shoulder blades, whilst his beard was almost long enough to tuck into his glittering belt. A small chain with a bead attached seemed to be tied around the end of said beard, possibly to keep it tidy and to stop it blowing everywhere. While the man looked senile and as if a good gust of wind would knock him over neither Clint nor Mateo were prepared to give him the chance to attack. Seeing as he had managed to appear in the middle of one of the most secure buildings in New York Clint immediately went on high alert.

"JARVIS, security breach!" Clint said loudly and knocked an arrow to his bow whilst Mateo copied him a second slower.

Albus found himself facing two hard faced people and two deadly arrows, neither of which concerned him overly. He had too many years' experience in duelling to worry about being hit by archaic muggle projectiles, he could just throw up a shield. Whilst a small part of his attention was diverted to staying alert for attack the majority of his thoughts were filled with his joy at finding the elusive Harry Potter.

Harry was looking quite healthy, he had a tan and looked to be quite muscular. It was difficult to guess exactly what condition the child was in because of the boy's loose green T-shirt and black jogging trousers he wore. However the aged wizard noted the child held himself confidently and was unafraid to wield a weapon against an intruder. It did worry and surprise Albus that the boy seemed to be prepared to shoot another person, and he didn't doubt that the adult by the child's side would shoot if provoked. However if the child was already familiar with weapons then perhaps it would not be difficult to nudge him into training well in magical defence to face Voldemort.

What else surprised him was that the boy did not wear glasses but seemed to glare at him with clear eyesight. Albus had known that James had been unable to have his vision corrected magically, and the venerable wizard was surprised that muggles may have found a way to combat what wizards hadn't. As much as he wanted to blurt out questions to Harry about where he had been and how he had corrected his eyesight Albus was at least sensible enough to be wary of the arrows pointed at him.

In hindsight he probably should have made an appointment, or perhaps walked down from the roof, but he couldn't undo his actions now. He smiled nervously at the two and scrabbled for a way to diffuse the tension when a dinging noise sounded and a door opened to reveal two more men. One swaggered forward confidently until he was metres from Albus, whilst the second went to stand in front of the child in a protective gesture. It also successfully got the child to lower his bow, for which Albus was grateful even if it didn't pose a risk to him.

"Well I have to congratulate you, no one has managed to get this far into the tower before. Who are you and how did you do it?" the one with the beard and the obvious ego asked.

"My name is Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I used magic to get here," Albus explained and waited for the reactions.

The bowman didn't react, apart from a narrowing of his eyes, and continued to aim an arrow at him. The clean-shaven man with curling dark hair looked as if things had clicked into place and things were being explained, so Albus guessed that this was the person who had taken care of Harry the longest. Harry had stopped glaring at him and was now scrutinising Albus with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. The Egotistical man's face remained blank.

"School of magic? Do you seriously expect us to believe that," he scoffed.

"I swear my good man that I am not lying, perhaps we can all sit down without the weapons and I can explain everything? Albus suggested.

"Clint, keep an eye on him but lower your bow," the bearded one said.

Harry and his likely guardian walked the long way round the sofas and settled on the one furthest from where Albus sat, which wasn't far away as the furniture had been placed to be close and intimate. The other man sat on the middle sofa like a referee and Albus sat across from Harry. The archer stayed in the kitchen area and sat on the breakfast bar with his bow across his knees whilst he spun the arrow through his fingers with practiced ease. Although he looked relaxed Albus was pretty certain it would take him less than a second to knock the arrow and fire it if he was thought to be a threat.

"I believe we should probably introduce ourselves, he is Tony Stark, Hawkeye is the one sitting over there and I am Bruce Banner. I assume the reason you are here is Mateo?" Bruce asked.

"Mateo? I am here to talk to Harry Potter. I must say Harry that your eyes are just as striking as your mother's," Albus said as he looked at the child.

"So my name was Harry," Mateo said thoughtfully, looking up at Bruce. Albus felt a little put out that he was being ignored.

"I prefer Mateo," Bruce said comfortingly.

"Me too," Mateo replied.

Albus wanted to object, he had no idea what had happened to the Potter child since he had left England but he couldn't ignore his heritage because he didn't like his name. He was also not being ignored and treated like just a common messenger, but before he could politely interrupt to regain control of the situation the archer spoke up.

"Sorry but I'm not buying this guy," Clint interjected from his perch. "Guessing physical attributes is not hard, any spy worth his salt is trained to worm their way into any situation with such skills. Admittedly the getting into the building is impressive, and knowing the child's identity is handy, but how can we trust you?"

"How can I prove myself then?" Albus asked patiently.

"' _Harry's_ ' start in life is rather vague, we know everything after he was six as he was with Bruce, and he himself remembers his life with his aunt and uncle. How did he end up there?" Clint asked without hesitation.

The wizard acted like he was thinking how best to cover the topic, but in reality he was already prepared to talk this through. Although such a conversation would have been easier to cover with the Dursleys, who already knew about magic, Dumbledore had prepared himself on the way over here.

"In Wizarding Britain there was a war ten years ago fought between a man called Voldemort, with his followers, and those who opposed him. Voldemort wanted supremacy of wizards over the Muggles, those without magic, and Muggleborns, those of our kind born from muggle parents. There were many who followed Voldemort out of their lust for power, and some who followed out of fear. The Wizarding world is but a small percentage of the muggle world, and the greater majority stayed neutral and inactive during the war. Of those that fought more were Death Eaters than not.

"James and Lily Potter were amongst those who fought Voldemort and his Death Eaters, until they became at risk of being hunted down. The Potters were an old and respected family line who always supported the Light, and Lily refused to be discriminated against. However When Lily had you she decided that they could not risk your life in the fighting, so they went into hiding. However they were betrayed by a friend and Voldemort found out where you were. He killed your parents and tried to kill you, Harry, but something went wrong. For some reason the killing curse rebounded off you and hit Voldemort himself. Voldemort was killed and the house was destroyed, whilst you escaped with nothing more than the scar on your forehead."

Albus saw the child reach up and rub his forehead, but was surprised when his fringe was parted and there was no scar. Bruce chuckled at Albus' look of confusion.

"I assume you wizards have never heard of plastic surgery? The scar never faded so we had it removed when Mateo reached a point where he became too obsessive about it."

"Normally curse scars cannot be healed," Albus explained.

"This wasn't healing, it's been covered by careful application of skin grafts," Bruce clarified.

"Back on topic, his parents were killed and so was this madman. So who took charge of Mateo?" Tony asked, specifically emphasising the name he was used to calling the boy by.

"Harry's godparents were also compromised by Death Eaters, so I took him to his relatives. He had an aunt and an uncle who were muggles and so were safely far away from the magical world that they would be left alone. Every wizard was celebrating Voldemort's downfall, and Harry was being hailed as the Boy-Who-Lived and was toasted across the country. I thought growing up away from that would be good for the child," Albus said.

"I assume you just left him on the doorstep or something, without talking to the family," Bruce asked in a deceptively mild tone. Tony and Clint tensed up at some hidden warning in their friend's voice.

"It was the middle of the night, I felt that they would not be very happy with being disturbed so I left a letter," Albus explained, he didn't seem to register the underlying tension in the room.

"And you never once checked on him?" Bruce's eyes hardened.

"I had a nearby neighbour keep an eye out."

"Well they did a terrible job, do you have any idea what kind of Mateo had with those people you left him with?" Albus almost flinched as the man exploded angrily. "When I found Mateo he had a broken wrist where his uncle had stamped on it, as well as bruising to the neck where he had been dragged, and lots of splinters in his palms and knees from where he had been thrown into the shed. As I treated him I found evidence of past broken ribs, most likely from being kicked, as well as numerous welts from being beaten with a belt. I was rather surprised there was no sign of significant head trauma, although they had definitely struck him there, most likely because they knew that any serious injury would mean they would lose their slave."

As Bruce had spoken Albus had had to fight the urge to cower slightly from the man. To him it was a bizarre experience, never had he been threatened so effectively by a _muggle_ of all people. But what seemed to make it more effective was the man's voice deepened to an almost rumbling growl, his eyes turned to a glittering green and his presence seemed to grow. Albus had seen instances when angry wizards had seemed to grow because their magic was reacting, but never had he seen it in a muggle.

"Dad, calm down," Mateo said quietly and carefully took one of Bruce's hands and laid the fingers on his own wrist.

"What are you doing?" Albus asked curiously.

"Dad has a condition where if he loses control then he will act without conscious thought, and we really don't want that to happen right now. I've found out in the past that distracting him calms him down again, and the easiest way I have found is to get him concentrating on something else. Me and my pulse seem to do that effectively enough and I'm usually around when this happens," Mateo said simply.

The three adults watched in interest as Bruce's jet green eyes dulled back to their warm brown colour. The man himself also relaxed and seemed to return to his normal mild-mannered self, and Albus could feel the threatening presence recede.

"How successful is that technique?" Tony asked, his mind already turning over the other uses of the information.

"I stopped him on the Helicarrier when he usually can't return, but then someone shot him and things went downhill from there. I've done it quite a few times now," Mateo said.

"We are getting off track here," Bruce said impatiently. "You left a _baby_ on a _doorstep_ in the middle of the night with only a letter by way of explanation and then failed to check in with the child when he was being abused. How the hell are you the headmaster of a school if you can't even act in the best interests of one child?"

Albus wilted slightly under the glare of the three adults facing him. "Harry was in danger from Death Eaters discovering him and finishing him off; I had to get the Boy-Who-Lived hidden quickly. The child was famous, I couldn't leave him in the Wizarding world in case the family he was with let it slip."

"There must be thousands of wizards in the UK, was there not one single family that could be trusted to look after him? What about hiding him in your school?" Bruce snapped back.

"I can only apologise for my idiocy and be grateful that you were around to take him in, where did you find Harry?" Albus desperately changed the subject.

"I found him in an alleyway, and seeing as he didn't even know his own name for certain I decided he couldn't go back to his relatives who obviously did not care for him," Bruce said.

"Where abouts was this alley? We searched extensively for Harry once we learnt he was missing," Albus asked.

"It was a bit late then wasn't it?" Tony could be heard muttering, but no one really paid him much attention.

"I was in India," Bruce smiled as Albus stared back in shock. "I take it that Mateo is rather gifted for him to have managed that."

"It is possible for adults to apparate that distance if they know where they are going, but for a child to perform accidental magic of that magnitude is unheard of," Albus admitted. "It is extremely dangerous to attempt it without knowing where you are going, you can reappear in a wall or leave parts of you behind."

"So you're a genius and a magical prodigy," Tony said happily, trying to get Mateo to focus on the positives rather than the fact he could have left a limb behind.

"Yes, he would easily at the top of his class at Hogwarts," Albus said.

The wizard decided that they had had enough time to berate him, and now he needed to convince Harry to come to Hogwarts. "I have the letter here which details what you would need to purchase, as well as your train ticket to get to Hogwarts."

"Hang on, we haven't accepted the offer yet," Bruce interrupted.

"But he has had his name down since the day he was born," Albus protested.

" _Harry Potter_ had his name down since he was born. _Mateo Banner_ has the choice of whether he wants to go to your school. Besides he probably doesn't have an invitation to your school does he?" Bruce snapped.

Mateo looked surprised but happy with Bruce's insistence of keeping his new name.

"But he is Harry Potter," Albus pointed out.

"I think you will find that any records of Harry Potter cease at age six, whilst Mateo Banner has a full history, with birth certificates, jab records and school reports," Tony smirked.

"How?"

"Simple when you know how to hack a system like I can, creating records is child's play compared to what I can do. I could set Bruce up with a completely new identity right now if I wished without any hardship, and no one would be able to tell if it was fake or not. So to us _muggles_ Mateo Banner is much more real than your supposed Harry Potter. I did a document sweep when I was filing Mateo's adoption papers, and the only record of his old name was a birth certificate and social service papers filled out by his relatives so that they could claim financial support for raising him."

"They got money for keeping me?" Mateo asked faintly.

"Sorry kid, but they lied to you every time they said you were a burden," Tony apologised, hoping to soften the blow.

"So every time they starved me, and made me wear Dudley's horrible cast-offs was because they deliberately wanted me to suffer rather than because they couldn't afford me? I had to sleep in a cupboard because of them! I may have been safe from wizards but I honestly thought my uncle was going to kill me a couple of times!" It was Bruce's turn to give Mateo a hug and whispered something into his ear as the child shook in a mixture of anger and emotional pain.

"As things add up I think Mateo is better off staying here and learning muggle things from us rather than joining this world that owes him everything and gave him nothing," Clint threw his two cents in, and Albus at least had the decency to look chagrined.

"I don't know, if I hadn't been abused by my relatives then I wouldn't have met Dad and be with you guys now," Mateo smiled weakly.

"As much as I have loved having you around I wish you hadn't had to face all that to get to me," Bruce muttered.

"Trust us kid, as long as we live we won't let you come to harm again," Tony said and behind him Clint nodded emphatically. "Now, do you want to learn about magic?"

"It would be rather interesting, as much as I love science I have never really found an area I felt pulled to. But the thought of learning magic feels right somehow," Mateo said slowly, and Albus started to look pleased at the decision.

"Just because he wants to learn magic doesn't mean we are letting him anywhere near you," Bruce snarled, and the pleased look that had appeared on Albus' face vanished.

"I'm sure every country has a magic school, we could dig around and find the one in America if you wanted us to. I'm right, aren't I?" Tony directed at Albus.

The wizard looked reluctant to answer, so Clint encouraged him. "Look mate, you either answer us honestly and gain an iota of respect amongst us or you refuse and Mateo stays here. I imagine losing the 'Boy-Who-Lived' is not something you want people to know about."

"Yes there are numerous schools across the globe, the one in America is alright but it was only set up a century ago so they are still learning the best methods for teaching. Durmstrang in Russia and Beauxbatons in France are very good schools. But I am not lying to you when I say gaining even mediocre grades at Hogwarts would look much better on his CV than even excellent grades at any other school," Albus said slowly. He then went on to give a very basic overview of the school's history and set up, obviously determined to try to get the child to choose the institute over any other.

"So why haven't we been contacted by one of the American schools?" Mateo asked.

"It could be because you've only just got here and you've only just gotten your citizenship. Or they send their letters out later, either way paper work takes time," Tony suggested.

"If you were to go into the wizarding world as Harry Potter I am sure you wouldn't need to do more than pass each class and you would be able to get a brilliant job. But as Mateo you might want to go to one of the better schools," Bruce said reluctantly as he thought through their options.

"I assume that the school is a boarding school? There is no way Mateo could travel that distance each day for lessons," Tony asked.

"Yes, term starts in September and students have three weeks off over Christmas and then term ends in June. Although it is not common practice for families to visit throughout the year, if Harry was able to get onto the Quidditch team then you could come to every match, which could be three times a year," Albus explained. "You would not be able to use Muggle technology to communicate, the sheer amount of magic in wizarding areas such as at the school and Diagon Alley, which is the shopping street in London, shorts out electric items."

"We might have a problem there then, I will have to avoid these places," Tony said with a slight frown.

"Why would that be?" Albus asked.

"Do you know nothing of recent Muggle events?"

"Should I?" Albus asked politely.

Tony snorted at the apparent superiority of the wizard. "JARVIS, play some of the news footage of the battle."

" _Certainly sir, do you have any preference in channel or part of the battle?"_ Albus seemed incredibly confused by the incorporeal voice.

"No, just put some on," Tony sighed, not for the first time wishing he had made his AI slightly less intelligent.

Albus was then treated to twenty minutes of footage of the battle, interviews with various important people analysing the threat of the Avengers, and then Tony's interview. Although the man understood very little of the technicalities behind how the battle came about, he understood that Tony relied on technology to survive for some reason (as there was that glow in his chest). He also caught the subtle hint that those who had taken Harry in as their own were able to face unbelievable odds and come out successful. According to the estimated body count the 'Avengers' had killed over a thousand invading beings while none of the six suffered from more than minor injuries.

"So I'll have to do some research before I can come visit Mateo, but at least that will give me an excuse to avoid the work Pepper is hounding me to do," Tony said lightly.

"I'll help you with that," Bruce offered.

"So I have to buy a load of school supplies, and get to Kings Cross by September, which gives me just under two months to stay here. I'm not sure about this," Mateo said honestly.

"You don't have to make up your mind right now, like you said we have two months before school starts, and we have that time to decide and buy things if you want to go," Bruce reassured him.

"Did my parents leave me anything? Any possessions like a property, or funds for school?" Mateo asked.

"The Potter vault is yours once you reach majority, and until then there is a smaller vault that you can access for your school requirements. The bank called Gringotts in Diagon Alley has your accounts," Albus handed over a small key.

"If that is everything then I shall see you in September Mr Potter," Albus stood after a lull in the conversation.

"It is Mr Banner, I refuse to be called Potter as that name only brings back bad memories. _If_ I attend, it'll be as Mateo Banner or not at all," Mateo said decisively.

Albus nodded unhappily and disapparated with a rather loud crack.

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When the headmaster was finally safely back in his office a few hours later he had to be careful to not start to destroy things. All his plans had been blown to the wind by the type of people Harry had ended up with. He had known how unbelievably predictable the Dursleys had been, so putting Harry there would have been a risk but then the child would have been much easier to predict from knowing his upbringing. This _Mateo_ would be a wilful wild card that could make the situation with Voldemort worse. And the board had already been set, with the Philosopher's stone and its puzzles already being placed as he thought.

Dumbledore slumped into his chair and rubbed his temples as a headache started to make itself known. It would take a lot of careful handling and planning but he wasn't prepared to consider the situation a lost cause just yet.

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Mateo sat there after Albus had gone and stared at the spot that the man had occupied. Bruce worriedly kept his arm slung around his son's shoulders whilst glancing between him and the spot he stared at. Tony stood and started pacing, while Clint dropped his arrow back into his quiver and slid the bow over the opposite shoulder.

"Well that was unexpected," he said to break the silence.

"Completely, the fact that the man confirmed that Mateo had magic was not after Loki's diagnostics, but the fact that Albus is such a manipulative and naïve son of a bitch and is in charge of a school is rather surprising. Sorry," Tony noticed Bruce's scowl at his choice in language.

"I need to think," Mateo said and wriggled from his dad's arms and padded towards the lift, his bow and quiver still across his back like Clint.

"One thing first kiddo," Tony said and waited until Mateo had turned to look at him. "I was serious in what I said, you are a genius and you will undoubtedly be successful in whatever you choose to do. I speak for all of us when I say we support you in your choice and we will always be here to protect you."

"Thanks Tony," Mateo nodded and left the room.

"You've been uncharacteristically emotional through this meeting," Clint observed.

"You heard what that kid has been through in the first few years of his life, he needs some support to realise the earth is not a cold dead place. Bruce knows how to deal with the psychological scars brought on by abusive families, and I know that he needs some people he can trust and rely on. Who better for that to be than his unofficial aunt and uncles?" Tony said frankly.

"What do we do if he does want to go to Hogwarts? The Other Guy was not impressed with that man, and letting Mateo go there would be like sending a lamb right into the lion's den," Bruce asked nervously. "And I'm not a qualified psychologist, I'm not even a properly qualified medical doctor."

"First off, Mateo is no lamb," Clint replied ignoring Bruce's protest, "that kid can be lethal if he wants to be. Second, if he is going as Mateo Banner then half of the heat will be taken off him as he won't have a giant target painted on his back. Thirdly I doubt the threat of the psycho killer will go away if we bury our heads in the sand, so he needs to be prepared."

"But he is not even eleven! How can he be expected to possibly have to face Death Eaters and Voldemort, if he is still alive, when he hasn't even started high school, let alone finished it!" Bruce almost shouted.

"The world isn't fair at times when it dishes out fate, but we can help him and change his odds so that he comes out of this fighting rather than a broken lad," Clint said sombrely.

"If he goes to that school, and that Diagon Alley, then I am going to find out as much as we can about that Voldemort and we can start research. Once we know everything about him then we can help figure out how we defeat him," Tony said almost like a vow.

"And wherever he decides to go we can at least make sure he has enough 'muggle' training to ensure he isn't defenceless," Clint promised.

Bruce didn't say anything but merely nodded in agreement of the two men he considered friends. In quite short order they both excused themselves to unknown jobs and left Bruce sitting on the couch to wait for his son's return.

* * *

 **A/N: I slipped in the title of an album I love to listen to in this chapter. Anyone spot it? It's not mainstream per se so it isn't blatantly obvious.**


	22. Chapter 22 - Reconnaissance Mission

**A/N: Hello once again! Time seems to be flying past and I start my job on Monday. As a result posting might drop to once a week depending on how much editing I can do in the evenings, and how awake I'm feeling seeing as I start at 7.30am. I will say if posting is changing, it'll be both on here and on my profile.**

 **Thanks as always to every follow/favourite/review, I'm sorry I've fallen behind on replying to reviews but this week has been hectic. Life is also starting to take over my time so I'm able to spend less time on this story, sorry :(**

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 **Chapter Twenty Two – Reconnaissance Mission**

Mateo had been lying on his back on his bed for the last three hours as his brain whirled with thoughts and snippets of the conversation they had just had. Over half of his life so far had been a lie, his parents were murdered and his aunt and uncle had deliberately treated him like dirt for fun. Then the person who revealed this to them turned out to be the one that had caused most of the problems in his life. The only consistently good thing Mateo had to rely on was Bruce, and now perhaps the Avengers.

The thought of going and studying at a school run by Dumbledore did not appeal to him; the man seemed to be manipulative and got people to do his bidding through lies. Although he had not said it, it was quite obvious that the wizard wanted him to be a poster boy for the potential future war and to help finish what _Harry_ had inadvertently started by surviving that night many years ago. He owed nothing to Albus, if anything the man owed him a lot of compensation for causing so much pain in his life.

In comparison, Bruce had only ever expected him to be polite and happy. The man had held back no secrets from him, even the largest and most terrifying part of his life was revealed to Mateo on their first proper day of knowing each other. Bruce had been prepared to risk his own neck by staying in America where Ross could easily find him; only so that Mateo could receive the best education money could buy so that he didn't have to be limited in the future. Of the two people Mateo would rather stay here with Bruce than to go within a hundred metres of Albus again.

But what complicated matters was that the thought of doing magic caused his imagination to spark in ways that nothing else did. Sure Mateo would enjoy being a doctor and helping people, and he probably would still end up doing so, but learning that he could learn to control magic seemed to feel right. He could only compare it to how he imagined true love was supposed to be like, you could not explain it, it just was supposed to be. As Tony and Bruce had said, they would support him in his choice, and he could always learn what they would be willing to teach him over the summer, and then train to be a doctor after finishing school at seventeen or eighteen.

He finally felt reasonably content in his decision, so Mateo sat up and stretched the stiffness from his limbs. He was unsure where everyone would be, so he headed up to the communal level and was lucky enough to find his dad there waiting for him. Bruce had not moved at all from the spot he had claimed on the sofa earlier, but as soon as he saw his son approaching he gave a nervous smile and set about making tea. Mateo sat at the breakfast bar and waited for his dad to finish preparing it before accepting the glass cup he often used and sniffed the herbal aroma appreciatively.

"How are you feeling?" Bruce asked gently.

"Tired, confused, angry, upset, relieved, grateful, worried, and a tiny bit excited," Mateo replied honestly.

"I can guess the reason to most of those, but I'm not sure why you feel relieved?" Bruce looked curiously at his son.

"When I was with my aunt and uncle they usually called me freak, and I never understood why. I started doing odd things occasionally when I was upset or angry, and then they continued when I was with you. Like that time I managed to pop up at your side and avoid getting run over," both Mateo and Bruce winced at that memory. "I had no explanation as to how I was doing it, and I was afraid that I really was a freak. I didn't want to disappoint you by being a freak, and now I know that I am not and that I was just doing accidental magic. I know Loki had already confirmed that for us but I still wasn't completely ready to believe him."

"You are and never were a freak, I'm glad that you have proof of that now," Bruce smiled.

Harry returned the smile weakly and sipped at his tea. "I think I want to learn magic, but I am definitely not interested as going as Harry Potter. I'm used to staying in the background and I don't want to be the centre of attention, I don't know how Tony stands it."

"He was raised with the media constantly watching, that's why he has many faces created to deal with different situations and I think the public persona stuck a bit too much. We can reply to Albus and tell him the conditions of you going to Hogwarts, unless you want us to try and find another school? Seeing as we know of Diagon Alley we can go there and find out from the wizards themselves where else we can look," suggested his dad.

"As much as I dislike admitting that man was right getting the best school on my CV would look the most impressive. And it would be interesting to discover some of my parent's past. Not that I am not grateful for everything you've done-," Mateo said in a panic.

"It's alright I understand completely what you want to find out more about them," Bruce grabbed his hand and stopped Mateo's garbled sentence.

"So, when are we going to Diagon Alley?" Mateo asked hesitantly.

"Tony has offered his plane for us to go on a trip at the weekend, and apparently he has a London apartment we can all crash at," Bruce revealed.

"Who is we?"

"Well Tony is determined to learn everything he can about this new world, and seeing as we are using his plane and flat we can't exactly say no to him. Clint wants to come too as back up, he doesn't trust Albus so he wants to keep an eye out. Also he would be useful to spot things on this 'intel mission' as he has called it. Then there will be us two obviously. We haven't told other two yet and I don't we should. If we did we would run the risk of all the Avengers appearing in the middle of London for no reason, which could spark panic," Mateo winced at the thought, and Bruce laughed at his expression.

"I'm surprised everyone is being so accepting of this, well Tony and Clint. I would have thought they would have put up a greater resistance than they seem to have," Mateo said.

"Tony will enjoy learning about magic just as much as you, and he will back your decisions whatever they may be. He really does have a soft spot for you. And Clint probably thinks you are wise enough to make your own decisions, although I bet he will be ready to defend you if something foul happens," Bruce said slowly. "But overall they both know what it is like to have someone play with their lives, and both of them hated it. They can see the wisdom of being trained to face your future, but that doesn't mean they will let anyone manipulate you into being something you aren't."

"So I'm going to get the education I want, Tony gets to learn something new, Clint gets to thumb his nose at manipulative fools across the world… What do you get out of this? If we go through with this it's going to be completely different to what we're used to," Mateo chewed his lip anxiously.

"I get to see you happy, I'm behind you whatever you decide to do," Bruce said with a smile and kept his fears tightly at bay. "Now I think we should take a break from debating your future and go do something interesting. Tony made Clint some new arrow heads, we could go watch them test them in the range?"

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Three days later Mateo was sitting wide eyed in a luxurious white leather seat staring out the window at the white fluffy clouds as Tony's private jet flew them to England. Of the three aircraft he had been in so far Tony's jet was by far the most comfortable for many reasons. The seats were deep and soft, there was a wide variety of in-flight entertainment, and the jet was flying evenly through the clouds rather than zipping along despite any adverse weather.

Clint was almost as excited as Mateo to fly in the private jet, but was doing a good job at hiding it as he checked over his bow and fussed over his quiver. The assassin had flown many times so watching the clouds pass by held no fascination for him anymore, but to be able to relax in comfort that exceeded first class standards and not have to pilot the jet was awesome. Although he and the other Avengers had lived at the tower for almost two months now Clint still found it difficult to relax with amongst the luxury that Tony was used to. Being on Tony's private jet just accentuated the sense of wealth that Clint was struggling with, so he settled with fidgeting to occupy his mind.

Bruce was in the same boat as Clint but had settled for flicking through the latest _New Journal of Physics_ to occupy his mind. Tony had been playing on his phone for a while but with his business conducted he ended up twiddling his thumbs. With no entertainment from the adults he eventually resorted to coaxing Mateo into joining him play some games on the installed gaming consoles.

Once in London a chauffeur driven car picked them up and took them to Tony's penthouse. Currently London was experiencing its summer season, which meant it was raining and the city looked generally dull, which did not appeal to Mateo. However Tony promised him that the place did liven up eventually as they took the lift to his apartment. Clint had been to London a couple of times so he was used to the city's various moods, although he had forgotten how annoying the city could become if you were soaked through from the cold rain and it was windy. Thankfully Tony's lifestyle meant that they didn't have to walk anywhere and they had barely been outside for longer than three minutes so far.

The flat they arrived at was definitely owned by Stark, but it was surprisingly subtle in its taste. The TVs were smaller, as were the sofas, than the ones installed in the New York tower. The furniture was more like that you would buy from a local trade outlet rather than being custom built for the rooms. The walls were painted in creams and the carpet was thick and soft and a latte colour.

"This place only has two bedrooms, so Clint you've got the sofa," Tony announced.

Clint rolled his eyes at Tony's oversight, but the sofa was deep enough for it to easily rival a single bed and it looked comfier than his bunk in the SHIELD Helicarrier. He dumped his bag at the side of the sofa and carefully stashed his bow case underneath the furniture whilst the others dropped their bags off in their rooms. Tony had said about getting out and seeing a couple of sights before visiting a local Italian restaurant he was fond of, so Clint didn't get comfy. However he couldn't resist slumping onto the sofa to test it out, and he was happy to learn he would likely be quite comfortable sleeping here.

"Legolas you might want to change, walking around in your usual outfit isn't going to blend in well with the rest of us," Tony's voice came down the corridor.

"What's the dress code then?" Clint shouted back, annoyed that he wouldn't get away with his black jeans and comfortable hoodie.

"Black tie! Although if you don't have a tie I can let you off of that. Remember this is London and we want to blend in with the locals. And I'm not meaning the student population," Tony advised.

Clint rolled his eyes but obeyed the billionaire's wishes, thankful that he had anticipated such an order when he was at the tower and had packed a few suits. He wasn't imaginative when it came to suits, so in no time he was lying on the sofa again, dressed in black trousers with a white shirt.

Bruce and Mateo emerged first, Bruce wearing a smarter version of his usual clothing in a tailored grey suit and purple shirt while Mateo was in a dark blue verging on black suit with dark green shirt. Tony then waltzed into the room in a blue suit, light blue shirt and a gold bowtie. When he noticed no one else had brought one he sighed and yanked off the bowtie and undid his top button to match the more relaxed look of his companions.

Tony fulfilled his promise and they were driven around the city to see Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, the Millennium Stadium, and the outside of the Natural History Museum, before Tony managed to buy them a ride on the London Eye. The rain had finally stopped and the sun was making a timid appearance, so Mateo could finally appreciate the view as they slowly travelled above the roofs of the city.

"It's not as manic as New York, but it is still an impressive city. The amount of effort put into the architecture and the windy roads gives it quite an appealing personality," Mateo observed.

"We should take a quick trip into the countryside, Mateo should experience some of the country roads around here," Clint suggested, then explained as he saw the child's confused look. "The roads were designed for sheep herding or small carts, so trying to fit modern cars down them is an interesting challenge. Especially when the hedges are over ten feet tall and you can't see what's coming down the road from the other way."

Mateo did not seem to enjoy the idea and Clint wondered if he suffered from travel sickness. He imagined that that would be very inconvenient if the child did considering some of the transport available in third world countries.

By the evening the group were still reasonably awake, so the conversation at the dinner table was quite lively. Tony was the only one who had any idea what the dishes were like, as they were labelled in Italian and the description was merely a list of expensive authentic ingredients that none of them had heard of before. Mateo did prod his food slightly suspiciously, but once he had tucked in he enjoyed his tagliatelle.

Mateo drew a few odd looks from nearby tables as he was the only child in the establishment, but his accent still passed close enough to English for him to masquerade as Clint's son, as the archer was also putting on an accent. To the casual eavesdropper it seemed like any other business meal or a catch up between distant friends. When they had finally eaten their fill and drunk through two bottles of extremely expensive wine (Bruce said he would abstained in solidarity with Mateo) the four of them were more than happy to head back to the apartment and relax with a movie before bed.

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Saturday dawned bright and clear and the four were up relatively early in their shared excitement of exploring something completely new. In the letter Albus had left instructions on how to find Diagon Alley, and so Tony had JARVIS plot out a route for his driver. After a quick breakfast the quartet piled into the car and were driven to a rather uninspiring part of the city. Tony told the guy to head home again and they were left staring about on the pavement, probably looking very much like the lost tourists they were. Although the suits, that Tony had insisted they wore again, made them look more like the victims of a carjacking than lost tourists.

"So what did the instructions say?" Bruce asked.

"Just that the entrance was called the Leaky Cauldron and was situated on this road," Tony recalled the letter easily.

"So it's through there?" Mateo asked and pointed to a book shop a bit further down the road.

"In the book shop?" Clint asked.

"No, the black building next to it," Mateo replied.

"I don't see a black building," Clint said stubbornly.

"Then you need your eyes checking, I can quite clearly see it," Mateo sighed.

"Hey kid I'll have you know my eyesight is fine! Bruce, Tony, back me up here," Clint pouted.

"Sorry but I can't see it either," Tony shrugged.

"Perhaps the reason only Mateo can see it is because he has magic, maybe the place has some kind of perception filter that only magical people can see through," Bruce suggested.

"Then how do muggle born children get to the place with their parents?" Mateo asked.

"Physical contact?" Tony suggested and promptly grabbed Mateo's hand and dragged him in the rough direction that the boy had pointed in.

Bruce quickly caught up and put a hand on Mateo's shoulder, while Clint protested at Tony grabbing his upper arm and dragging him along. Tony was ignoring him though as he had been right and he could now see the pub. When they reached the door Bruce and Clint entered first before Mateo was allowed in, with Tony bringing up the rear, much to his indignation. The choice of entry worked out well though as Tony's potentially overexcited entrance would have drawn a bit of attention from the quiet and calm pub occupants.

However as soon as he stepped through the threshold Tony was too busy keeping tabs on the functionality of his arc reactor to worry about making a scene. His phone had died as soon as they passed through the doors, but whatever had caused that failure was not interrupting the power source buried in his chest. Tony hazarded a guess that the Starkanium metal that powered the reactor was like the palladium core in that it was a natural element that happened to emit power. Hopefully that meant the magical current could not interfere with the workings like it did with a phone that was run off of a human made power source.

The room the group found themselves in was quite well lit from the large, if slightly grimy, windows and numerous candles placed on various surfaces around the room. A fire crackled merrily in the large fireplace too despite the room being plenty warm enough without its added heat. There seemed to be a few people dotted around the room, some in large cloaks that hid their faces and sat hunched over their drinks. However the large majority of the patrons looked relatively presentable and normal as they sat in groups talking quietly. Of these people only a couple really paid attention to the four who stood just inside the entrance with matching confused and interested looks. They certainly didn't seem to register at all that three of the four were globally famous.

"Morning, it's always nice to see new faces," the cheery barman said as they spotted him. "How can I help?"

"We were actually looking for the entrance to Diagon Alley?" Bruce asked politely and expecting to be turned away.

"Ah, right this way. This must be your first time here then? First in the family, or have you just moved here from America?" the man asked happily and motioned for them to follow him.

"Yes this is our first time to the street; Mateo is the first to have magic in the family so we are very excited for him. We moved from America last year, so this is a learning experience for all of us," Bruce chatted back happily as he lied through his teeth. The barman seemed to have a way of putting people at ease as Bruce found himself relaxing slightly despite his nerves.

"Well my name is Tom, I run the Leaky Cauldron and if you ever have any questions then feel free to ask. We have quite a lot of new families every year and sometimes the kids don't feel confident in asking some of the more mundane questions with the professors. Now, to get to Diagon Alley you have to tap these bricks," Tom explained.

They had reached a small walled courtyard that barely held the five of them, and Tom tapped a sequence of bricks with his wand. Suddenly the wall in front of them started to move and rearranged itself into an archway, and the four of them were entranced by the display of magic. It took them a little while to realise that the act had revealed a bustling street full of very new sights for them to see.

"I'd recommend going to Gringotts first, that's the huge white building at the end, for your money. Although it is quite useful to be able to browse without the temptation to buy things," Tom smiled at their awed looks.

"Thanks for your help, Tom," Clint managed to say before the man wandered back inside his pub.

"So, Bank like he said?" Tony asked quietly, his mind too busy processing what he was seeing to really form an eloquent sentence.

"Sounds like a good idea," Mateo laughed at the expressions that the others were pulling.

Getting to the bank was a lot easier said than done, as all four of them were rather easily distracted from their goal by the wide variety of shops and products for sale. Bruce was doing quite a good job in herding them all until he saw the bookshop and had to be rescued himself before he walked in. Clint and Tony were distracted by any shop they passed, whilst Mateo found himself most powerfully drawn to the bookshop, but also the apothecary and the pet shop.

Although Tony's idea of dressing to impress worked well in the muggle world, they simply stood out like a sore thumb amongst the crowds wearing old-fashioned robes in many colours, whilst children seemed to wear clothes that could almost have them blending in with their muggle peers. Their suits, casual though they may have been, gained some odd looks from the magical folk as they passed. Mateo was confused to see that many of the people that looked at them either almost in a seemingly indulgent manner, or condescendingly. Both types of looks suggested that they viewed the quartet as a lesser type of being and Mateo had no idea why.

Eventually they made it to the bank, and had to consciously stop themselves from staring at the small creatures that were dotted around the place as guards or were serving humans at enormous desks. Bruce luckily managed to overhear what the people in front were asking so acted pretty confidently when asking for access to the Potter vault. The being behind the desk didn't bat an eyelid at the request and the two were led away to visit the vault. Mateo spotted Tony walking up to the next cashier and guessed he was going to get some legal tender for their trip.

Two rather terrifying and yet exhilarating cart rides later Mateo and Bruce were back in the foyer of the bank looking around futilely for Tony and Clint.

"Why am I feeling it wasn't a good idea to leave those two alone?" Bruce muttered as they ventured out to the street once it became obvious that the two weren't in the building.

Mateo followed him but accidentally bumped into a family as he walked through the huge doors to the bank. He had been distracted by the inscription in the door of the marble building and hadn't seen the others until he walked into them.

" **My apologies,"** Mateo said in Hindi in response to the swirl of colour he had collided with. He only realised he had spoken in another language after he had finished speaking and almost repeated himself in English but was stopped by the woman.

" **What did you say?"** The woman who he had bumped stopped moving in surprise.

" **I hope I got the wording right, I am sorry for knocking you,"** Mateo said, his brow furrowed in confusion, he was sure that he had spoken properly and hadn't accidentally insulted the woman.

" **Your wording was perfect, I am just surprised to find someone who speaks Hindi in Diagon Alley. And an English child at that. My name is Anvi Patil,"** the woman explained.

" **Oh, I'm Mateo Banner. I forgot where we were, I was busy trying to find some friends and I only realised you were wearing a sari and so responded in the first language that came to mind,"** Mateo replied.

Now that he was paying attention Mateo was surprised that he had slipped up. The woman, along with her husband and two daughters, were indeed wearing Indian clothes. However Mateo had pretty much exclusively been speaking English for the last two months at the tower, apart from his Russian lessons with Nat. For him to slip right back into Hindi without even registering the stimuli that caused the change was surprising for him.

" **How is it that you know Hindi so well? Even my own daughters are not as fluent and we have tried teaching them the language as they grew up,"** the woman looked approvingly at him.

" **I was raised in India by my father who was a travelling doctor,"** Mateo explained vaguely. **"Anyway I am sorry but I should be going, we need to find our friends before they get lost or into trouble."**

" **What do they look like? We have just walked up the street and may have seen them,"** the woman asked kindly.

" **They are two muggles wearing suits, both with short hair but one has black hair and a beard and the other has dark blonde hair,"** Mateo described them.

" **There were two who matched that description at the ice cream parlour,"** the husband piped up.

" **Thank you,"** Mateo bowed politely, **"I look forward to seeing you at the Hogwarts Express."**

Mateo trotted towards where his father was and grabbed him by the hand. "Come on, apparently they are stuffing their faces with ice cream."

Their information had been right, and two minutes later Bruce was standing with his arms crossed and a disapproving look on his face while Tony and Clint sat unashamedly tucking into huge bowls of ice cream.

"You could have at least bought us one each," Mateo sighed and sat down next to them.

"Well we weren't sure how long you would be in there counting your gold, so we decided to enjoy our time here," Clint explained around a mouthful of unnaturally blue ice cream.

"I'm telling you if take your galleons and convert it to dollars you are probably going to be rolling in it, the conversion rate is seven dollars to the galleon at the moment," Tony informed them.

"Well that is good to know, Even if Mateo doesn't stay here he should be able to still go to any university he wishes in America," Bruce said, happy that there would be a way of funding Mateo's college fund beyond whatever he could earn, or Tony's charity. It was one time that he was grateful that Mateo's biological parents had been who they were, it meant that his child wouldn't have to worry about money for many years.

"So is the intelligence gathering of the ice cream coming up with any good results?" Mateo joked.

"They have loads more varieties than we have, but I would definitely recommend the clotted cream, chocolate, candyfloss, wild cherry, and salted caramel," Clint pointed at the different flavours he had.

"I'll get us some," Bruce said, and relieved Mateo of a few galleons to go order.

Like Tom in the bar, the owner of the parlour was a friendly and talkative fellow who happily chatted about some wizarding history and about the Alley. He advised them against going down the gloomy alley they had seen on the way up, citing the alley's dark reputation.

Over their ice cream they decided that Mateo may as well go about buying everything as if he was to go to Hogwarts, and hopefully by talking with the shopkeepers and other shoppers they could gain more of an insight into the way of life. No one mentioned the types of looks they had been getting from some of the richer families in the street, and it seemed to be an unspoken unanimous decision to keep the day a pleasant one.

Mateo was content with the decision, he was thoroughly enjoying the feeling of being in Diagon Alley as it felt alive like he hadn't experienced before. It seemed that every cell in his body was tingling with energy, the closest he could describe it like was when he was pumped on adrenaline. The magical world may have been completely bizarre and archaic but Mateo was eager to explore and learn more about it.

"So, I think perhaps we should buy a trunk first to carry everything in and then we can do some serious shopping. Pepper would be so proud of me for being so organised," Tony said in mock seriousness.

The shop dedicated to trunks and bags was both boring and interesting at the same time. The variety of products was impressive for the simple act of carrying things around, and the materials and spells varied to suit any kind of occasion. Mateo settled on a book bag that looked similar to the shoulder bag Bruce used for his medical bag, and a wooden trunk. Both had expansion and feather light charms worked into them so Mateo wouldn't have to worry about the weight of items. The shopkeeper also shrunk the trunk, which caused some concern until she explained that all Mateo had to do was tap them twice with his wand to make them larger again. With this in mind they realised they could probably store everything in Mateo's book bag without having to tote around a load of bags like they had all witnessed muggle women doing in the mall. All they had to do was request that everything they bought was shrunk down.

Next they went to the stationary shop, which was again more interesting than it promised and they got carried away buying a variety of coloured inks, quills, and wax seals. They bought one type for each of the Avengers to use when writing to Mateo, as well as a good range for Mateo to use at school. However the boy's selection of inks were a lot more sedate, they all agreed it was likely frowned upon to hand essays in written in neon green ink.

Third stop for the quartet was the robe shop, and Mateo was treated with his first proper interaction with a student. The owner was another cheery soul who had Mateo hop up onto a stool so that she could pin the hem of his robe, whilst another employee was doing the same thing for a pale haired boy a few feet away.

"So you're going to Hogwarts?" the boy asked. He had quite angular features and seemed well spoken, as if he had had a good education and strict parents.

"It sounded like the best one to go to," Mateo shrugged, unsure how to continue the conversation.

"Father thought about sending me to Durmstrang, but Hogwarts is the best even with the current Headmaster being a bit senile," Mateo surreptitiously rolled his eyes at the boy's tone and remained silent.

"Which house do you think you will be in? I'm going to be in Slytherin," the boy seemed to boast, apparently not content with silence.

"I have no idea, perhaps Ravenclaw," Mateo was thankful that Albus had covered a bit about the houses in his attempt to woo Mateo to Hogwarts.

"My name is Draco Malfoy," Draco said in an even more self-absorbed tone than Tony had used when he had introduced himself to Mateo on the Helicarrier.

"Mateo Banner," Mateo nodded his head in greeting.

However instead of taking the news neutrally as Mateo expected the boy instantly seemed to tense warily, "You're a mu-, Muggleborn?"

"Yes, I assume from the way you knew that you have every genealogy of every wizarding family memorized? I guess you aren't used to dealing with muggleborns then," Mateo said and waited for the reaction.

On some levels it was amusing to watch the boy visibly recoil from Mateo, as if he carried the plague. However it was incredibly insulting and infuriating to be discriminated against simply for his pretend heritage. If he wasn't trying to not draw attention to himself he would potentially speak up about the unfairness of the discrimination, or at least leave the shop to avoid a confrontation. As he was stuck on the stool Mateo thought very carefully before talking.

"You know you are the kind of person that makes up the reason I am considering not going to Hogwarts, blood counts for nothing when it comes to the crunch. I have muggle friends that literally could destroy the planet and you think yourself above them?" Mateo said as his eyes burned with anger.

"They do not look so impressive," he boy scoffed as he gazed over the three men who were examining the racks of robes around them. It didn't help that Tony had just rammed a bright orange hat onto Bruce's head.

"Looks can be deceiving, and if continue to treat everyone as less important and less talented than you then you are going to severely regret it one day," Mateo didn't bother trying to explain the Avengers.

"That's you done dear," Madam Malkin sounded relieved as she nudged Mateo's leg and he hopped off the stool.

"Think about it, and if you aren't such a pompous idiot in September then perhaps we could take our conversation further," Mateo paid for his clothes, gave a small bow to Madam Malkin, and left the shop with Tony and Bruce in tow.

Clint gazed at the boy still standing on the stool and narrowed his eyes. He cocked his head to the side as if considering something before smiling in a rather chilling manner. "You know, my friend knows twenty different ways to kill someone with a spoon; do you really want to start a grudge match with Mateo?"

Hawkeye promptly left the shop to catch up with the other three, grinning at his little bit of fun.

Visiting the bookshop known as Flourish and Blotts was fatal for both Mateo's and Tony's funds. With the knowledge that they could buy anything and have it shrunk to fit inside Mateo's bag meant that even Clint was looking in interest at the various titles on the books. Bruce ensured that they gathered the recommended books before allowing Mateo to wander and look for other books he would be interested in buying. Pretty soon they had a pile that included books on healing, wandless magic, curses and hexes, a few on history (including ones on Harry Potter) and Hogwarts, a book on famous battles, and some on wizarding customs.

Tony had a stack that covered a lot of natural history and potion making, and even Clint had found one on apparently about Aurors and their history as wizarding police, including some of their wider known training regimes. The cashier didn't say anything but did look rather surprised at the wide variety of books, and the sheer number, being bought.

Seeing as it was next door, the group headed for the rather dim looking shop that apparently sold wands as the next port of call. It was rather conspicuously different from the other shops in that it appeared to be rather deserted. Mateo stood patiently by the counter while the Bruce waited nearby and Tony and Clint wandered close to the shelves to examine the writing on the boxes. The sound of rolling wheels and the thunk of a ladder rolling to a stop announced the arrival of Ollivander, the owner of the shop.

"I wandered when I would be seeing you Master Potter," the man said with a rather unnerving glimmer in his eye.

"It is Mateo Banner, I may have once responded to that name but now I have a new life and more to live for than revenge," Mateo stated coolly.

"And a new family to support you I see," Ollivander nodded at the adults that had unconsciously edged closer to the boy upon his arrival.

However the man seemed to lose interest in trying to outwit the boy and started pulling out boxes seemingly at random. All four of them were slightly confused by his sudden lack of interest in Mateo's life, but they soon got sucked into the act of trying out wands. Ollivander kept up a pretty constant stream of wands for Mateo to try, although he had little time to do more than vaguely wave each wand before it was snatched from his hand and replaced with another. The assembled muggles had no idea what kind of reaction the man was looking for but they watched the man constantly hand the boy wands for a good ten minutes.

Eventually the man paused his actions and stopped walking around. The man stared at the boy for a full minute with his head cocked to one side, as if contemplating something, before heading into the back of the shop. He returned with a single box which he opened and presented to Mateo.

"Cherry and phoenix feather, ten and a half inches, resistant. I have a feeling that this will suit your needs," Ollivander urged him to pick up the wand.

As soon as his hand touched the wood Mateo felt a jolt as if some kind of energy had shot down his arm and into the wood.

"Well, give it a wave," Ollivander said impatiently.

Mateo did and a shower of multi-coloured sparks shot out of the end as he swished it. The sparks matched the six colours Clint had had put onto the boy's bow, and soon faded from existence, but Ollivander seemed happy with the result.

"Excellent, I thought you would perhaps be a tricky match Mr P- I mean Master Banner, but there is no doubt that you are destined for great things," Ollivander said proudly.

"So what does my wand mean about me? I assume every aspect of the wand has a reason and meaning behind it?" Mateo inspected _his_ wand thoughtfully.

"The design has no reasoning beyond what feels right with the wood as I carve it," Ollivander explained to start.

Mateo inspected the wood, as the other three gathered around to see, and saw that the wood was highly oiled and polished so that it shone with a dark beauty. Overall the wand looked more like a dagger, with a slightly flattened handle that had a small crosspiece and pommel carved into the design. The pommel was slightly curved and curled over Mateo's little finger to avoid the wand slipping from his grasp. The handle was faintly etched with swirling crossing patterns, and to Mateo they looked vaguely like the patterns on Mjolnir. The shaft of the wand was smooth and plain, and seemed dull in comparison to the handle. However that allowed the swirl of the grain in the wood to show through and lent the wand a natural beauty.

"You felt this design within the wood?" Mateo asked, impressed with the workmanship.

"Even as the wand is created it feels its owner calling it. It is the wand that chooses the wizard, Master Banner. Cherry wood is sometimes underestimated by western wizards as they see the tree as being one of beauty and ornamental uses, but not much else. If you were to meet a Japanese wizard and you had this wand, he would be very much in awe of you and the power you wield. Cherry wands can produce some powerful and lethal magic, so those who underestimate you may not live to do so again. I advise caution in your actions when you duel another, lest you accidentally inflict more damage than you intended to.

"The length often matches the type of personality and magic performed by the owner. Longer wands are often matched with the more flamboyant caster with bigger personalities, whilst the shorter wands are better suited to the more subtle and intricate magics, the very short often are owned by those lacking character. Yours is not that short, but certainly a few inches shorter than a number I make each year.

"Now, the core is an interesting facet of the wand despite the limited materials we can use. Unicorn hairs are usually suited to the pure of heart but are not normally the most powerful wands, whilst dragon heartstring is the most powerful but can be the easiest to be bent to more nefarious acts easiest. The phoenix feather is a rare core component simply because there are few phoenix's that will allow their feathers to be used. They create wands that will perform the greatest variety of magic, but can be hard to earn their allegiance, although I feel you and yours are already bonding well.

"Your phoenix feather is even more unusual than most as its owner gave just one more feather, which was the one that caused your scar," Ollivander finished and flicked his eyes up to Mateo's forehead to see the famed scar.

The four did not miss his look of surprise that although he was close enough to see through Mateo's fringe, which had been blown into disarray by the wind, he was unable to find the fabled scar.

"Like I said, I left Harry Potter behind many years ago, and he shall remain hidden until such a time as he might be needed to save the wizarding world," Mateo explained.

"Indeed, I shall watch your progress with interest Master Banner, I sense you shall do great things in the future," Ollivander said.

Mateo paid for the wand and left the shop thoughtfully, unconscious of the fact he was mirroring his father's expression. Clint and Tony, however, did notice this and chuckled before they attempted to break the silence.

"Well he was officially creepy with his almost stalkerish habit," Clint said.

"I want to get a book on wand making," Tony declared and dragged them back to Flourish and Blotts for said book.

Another hour and ten books later the group re-emerged looking a lot happier and less pensive than when they left Ollivander's.

"So, we have pretty much everything apart from a potential pet, and potions stuff," Tony ticked off the list until he reached the last items.

"I'm not sure a pet is a good idea, it will only mess up the tower and need feeding," Mateo said slowly.

"Well we are doing intel gathering, so we need to go in there anyway," Clint said and marched into the shop.

As soon as Mateo entered the shop he could tell that this was not like any muggle pet shop, even though he had never visited one. For example, where could you find blue hedgehogs in tanks next to neon yellow slugs, whilst dogs and cats could be found next to owls and fruit bats? Each of them ended up wandering in different directions towards things that caught their eye. Bruce was inspecting a bull frog that was three times the size of its normal counterparts, while Tony was playing with a fluffy red kitten and muttering about buying it for Pepper. Clint was inspecting a flying fox as if he had found a kindred spirit. Mateo was quite taken with the owls, but a thought crossed his mind.

"Excuse me miss," he approached the twenty-something witch at the desk nervously.

"Hello, how can I help you?" the woman seemed amused by Mateo's cute shyness and smiled at him.

"I was wondering if you could help me with some questions? You see my father and I have just moved to England and I have just been accepted into Hogwarts, but my godfather and my friends live in America. Would an owl be able to make that journey, or is there some other way that I would be better to contact them through?" Mateo smiled politely and waited for the answer.

"Well the owls that we use are magical and can find their way to any recipient of the letter as long as they are not magically hidden. And seeing as these owls are so intelligent they know that there are portals in numerous magical hubs across the globe that they can use to get to other continents. There is one in London that links to New York, Houston and San Francisco, so any letters should reach him in a couple of days," the woman explained.

"That is incredibly useful, I assume there is a human version of that?" Mateo asked curiously.

"We can use the Floo network, which involved throwing Floo powder into a fire and then simply call the address of the place you want to go to and you can get there in a minute. There is also apparition but that is something only possible by those who are trained to do it," she replied.

"And if I was to get an owl, what do they feed on?"

"Well we sell owl treats which would do at a pinch if you were travelling and your owl had to be caged, but they prefer to hunt for themselves when they can. I know Hogwarts has a large owlery where all the owls live and they are free to fly out and hunt as they wish."

"Thank you for that, it has given me something to think about," Mateo bowed slightly, which elicited a giggle from the woman, and wandered off to look at the animals.

"So what do you think?" Mateo asked Bruce as he passed the man.

"I have a feeling we may be leaving with a few pets even if you aren't going to get one," Bruce chuckled.

"We need a team mascot, and although we sort of have you we can't really dress you up and pet you as that would be slightly strange," Tony appeared next to them.

"Would that mean getting only one pet, or are you likely to buy one for everyone?" Bruce asked.

"Just one… for now," Tony grinned.

"So are we getting a carrier pigeon or something?" Clint joined the group.

"Apparently owls can travel to America and they feed themselves, and I assume they don't make much mess as most people seem to own one. It is still a commitment though," Mateo dithered.

"Owls are rather idiotic creatures, and not so brilliant in a fight. What about something more impressive? They have some other stuff around here that is pretty cool," Clint dragged Mateo over to the other side of the shop whilst the other two followed.

"The thing is I don't really want to stick out more than I have to, things could get complicated if I start drawing attention to myself," Mateo pointed out.

However he indulged the man and looked at the wide variety of pets available in cages, but did not find any that really struck a chord with him. He was about to give up and go back to the hedgehogs when he spotted an owl on the end of the row that interested him. The sign labelled it as a Boobook owl, and it was dark brown in colour on its back and chest that paled on its underbelly. Its pale eyebrow markings and large eyes gave it a constantly surprised expression, and Mateo couldn't help but smile at it as it looked at him.

"Him, I think I shall have him," Mateo gestured to the owl.

"What happened to owls are rather dense creatures and a falcon would be much cooler?" Clint sighed.

"As cool as one of the hawks would be, I feel an owl would be better, and more specifically that owl," Mateo shrugged. "That is, if I am allowed an owl?"

"I have no objections," Tony called over. The trio looked over to him and Clint and Mateo laughed at the red kitten that was currently perched on his head with the same pleased look gracing its features as was on Tony's.

"You can't really seeing as you are buying a kitten," Bruce sighed at the man's antics. "I don't mind either, just make sure it is healthy and happy."

"Thanks Dad!" Mateo hugged the man then accepted the cage off of Clint who had unhooked it for him.

"Give him here Mateo, I'll buy him at the same time as Augustus here," Tony ordered.

"But-," Mateo started.

"No buts, this is the duty of a godfather and I am going to fulfil it. I haven't really had the chance to spoil you yet," Tony insisted.

"Thanks," Mateo muttered and flashed a grateful smile. He didn't really want to spoilt the day by bickering with Tony over the fact he had given them a place to live and an entire wardrobe of clothes.

"Augustus?" Clint asked, hiding a laugh.

"Augustus the First was one of Rome's greatest and most beloved Emperors. I thought the name suited his colour."

Tony paid a couple of extra galleons for the two to be kept in the shop while they quickly bought their final purchases in the cauldron shop and apothecary. Clint and Tony were busy cracking jokes about the stereo typical witch look, while Mateo and Bruce hunted for the required cauldron.

Luckily the two dropped the wise-cracking as they stepped into the slightly more solemn feeling apothecary. They all got rather distracted by the wide variety of ingredients dotted around the shop, from cockroach eggs to bezoars to a dragon liver. The mixed aroma was rather pungent and Tony and Clint decided to go back and play with the kitten rather than stay in the same room as an uncovered liver.

Mateo allowed himself time to inspect everything, but then returned to his mission of finding a potions kit he liked the look of and gathering the required items. He was in the process of filling paper bags with two scoops of each ingredient when a tall and rather sinister looking wizard dressed in black robes swept into the shop. Sensing the man was in a hurry Mateo stepped out of the way respectfully, which the man seemed to ignore. Once had all the required ingredients, and a bezoar, Mateo headed to the till where he arrived two paces ahead of the other man.

"After you sir," Mateo bowed and stepped back to allow the man to be served first.

Mateo expected the look of surprise, but the suspicious scrutiny was odd. However he merely stood there in a relaxed, unthreatening posture and waited for the man to purchase his items.

" **Is everything alright here?"** Bruce asked in Malayalam.

"We're fine Dad, I just thought it would be respectful to let this gentleman ahead of me as he seems to be in a hurry," Mateo explained as his father emerged from the shelved area.

"That's very good of you Mateo," the black robed wizard regarded Bruce for a few seconds before turning to the desk without acknowledging his praise of his son.

"Severus, it's good to see you again, it mustn't be long before term starts again…" Mateo decided to tune out of the conversation going on.

"Have you got everything?" Bruce asked.

"I think so, I got two scoops of everything just in case I muck up. I thought it would be better to have extra and be able to restart rather than be limited for the year. I know Tony could bring us back here to get more but I would rather be prepared," Mateo explained.

The black-robed man gave him another look on the way out, which Mateo smiled at uncertainly, before the boy turned to buy his equipment. They quickly ran out to ensure Tony had not decided to buy everyone a kitten and headed into the pub to head home.

"If we are doing intelligence gathering then should we eat dinner here? We could chat to Tom and get more information," Bruce suggested.

So that was how they ended up seated at a rickety table in the corner of the pub, enjoying butterbeers and hearing lots of gossip and tales from Tom. It was lucky that Tony had the number for his driver as by the end of the evening he and Clint had gotten a little silly on firewhiskey and needed guiding back to the apartment.


	23. Chapter 23 - Hogwarts

**A/N: Evening everyone! Or morning, or whatever time of day it is for you. As always thank you for all new reviews and followers/favouriters.**

 **I'm sorry that the last chapter seemed to be of a slightly lower quality than I usually produce, or at least people have pointed out a few errors I missed. I am usually a lot more diligent in picking them out, so I shall try to avoid errors in the future. I started my job today too which was good fun although it will cut down my writing time.**

 **Also no Hedwig as you spotted – the reason for that is it annoyed me that Hedwig is female but they used male owls constantly in the film. The differences are extremely obvious and it niggled at me… Anyway I'm putting in my favourite owl species as a substitute, I worked with a Southern Boobook called Airborne whilst on placement and he is a cracking bird!**

 **And the song (actually album title, sorry!) was 'The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place' by Explosions in the Sky. A cracking album to listen to when revising, I have no idea how many times I played it whilst revising in the uni library.**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty Three – Hogwarts**

On the flight back to New York Mateo and Bruce extensively discussed the pros and cons of going to Hogwarts. After quite a few hours and many frustrated sighs the two of them were finally in agreement that the decision for Mateo to attend the school was the best one. All that was left was for them to tell the rest of the Avengers and for Mateo to get used to the idea of living away from his father for many months. The longest the two had been apart from each other over the last four years was the day when the Other Guy had made an appearance in the Helicarrier and had ended up jumping ship.

Telling the others turned out to not be as difficult as Mateo had feared it could have been. They all had reasonably open minds after seeing Loki in action, and the existence of a naturally blood-red kitten helped their argument. So they spent more time answering questions about Diagon Alley and wizards than arguing the existence of a magical school. Steve had been pretty angry at the thought of Albus' manipulations, but as all the Avengers were determined to help he swallowed his anger and focussed on planning. If they had to work with the man then their feelings couldn't get in the way of their efforts to win.

The remaining months that Mateo had at the Stark/Avengers Tower consisted of studying his books and as learning what he could from each of the Avengers from self-defence to archery to survival skills. Tony had read through the book on wizarding laws across the globe and had learnt that Mateo would actually be allowed to practice magic during his time off. Apparently the American laws were a lot more lax than British ones, and magic was permissible around related muggles/adoptive family. However Mateo held off from practicing incantations until he was confident he was pronouncing things properly, which he would learn at school. Tony had badgered him to promise to perform _some_ magic over the Christmas period as a compromise for not being able to see any that summer.

Mateo's birthday that year was incredibly different to what he was used to both with his relatives and how Bruce had marked the event. They had settled with still using the first of July as his birth date, and the entire day was filled with laughter and silliness. Each of the Avengers and Pepper had bought him gifts despite his insistence that they didn't need to.

Steve bought him a new sketch pad, Clint bought him a holster for his wand that could be attached to a belt or strapped to the arm, while Natasha had settled for a rather fearsome pocket knife in lieu of some throwing knives (it seemed Bruce had objected to the latter idea by the relieved look he sported). Tony had bought him a poster of all the Avengers together as a 'memento' as well as an expensive looking leather jacket that was thin but surprisingly warm. Pepper then arranged them into a more intimate family look and took a photo, which she disappeared off to print out then presented it to Mateo in a beautifully ornate silver frame. To go with it she had also created a photo album of news cuttings of the Avengers as well as random casual photos of them all. They all chuckled at Thor's gift which Tony had bought in the God's absence and turned out to be ten boxes of poptarts.

September rolled around much too quickly for any of their likings. Tony managed to somehow arrange for all of them to have a few days off and they all jetted over to England together to see Mateo off at Kings Cross Station. In the meantime Happy was left in charge of Augustus, who Pepper had come to adore and refused to leave alone. They spent the majority of the flight doing social things, like playing poker without bets, as all of them wanted to ensure they topped up on family time to last the next three months.

"Erm, how do we actually get onto the platform? If I remember rightly it isn't a normal platform number," Clint said as they arrived at the station. Steve was in the process of loading Mateo's trunk onto a trolley and the boy was busy putting his caged owl on top.

"Apparently it is Platform 9¾… Perhaps there is some kind of subtle but obvious sign for magic users to follow?" Bruce suggested slowly as they start to walk into the heaving brick building.

"Well we can just follow them and find out," Tony decided before walking off.

It took the others a few seconds to realise where he had gone, and why. They finally realised that he had been hurrying after a family of redheads, four of which were pushing large battered trunks on their trolleys. What was even more telling was that one of them also had a Eurasian Eagle Owl in a cage on their trolley. With a much clearer target to aim for the group weaved through the stream of suited muggles and finally reached the family. By the time they all caught up the redhead clan had already decreased by three.

"Excuse us ma'am," Steve called out politely.

The slightly short and chubby woman turned while her daughter peaked at the approaching group from around her. Mateo noticed that although the mother and her two still present kids looked smartly dressed, their clothes showed signs of wear. The boy who was probably his own age was wearing a pair of jeans that were starting to show his socks from under the hem, and he had dirt on his nose. He seemed to notice Mateo's gaze and looked back challengingly at him but Mateo didn't see any shame in his clothing, until they had moved in with Tony his clothing had often been in the same state.

"Sorry for interrupting but we aren't sure how to get onto the platform, and we noticed that your sons seem to be going too," Bruce said as he drew closer, unaware of the silent exchange between his son and hers.

"Ah, it's your son's first time?" the woman asked as she looked between Mateo and Bruce and correctly guessed their relation. If she was curious about the large group of other people there at the same time she didn't voice it.

"Yes ma'am," Mateo nodded politely, almost mimicking Steve's mannerisms unconsciously.

"Well all you need to do is to walk into the wall between platforms 9 and 10, it's the one with the slightly uneven signs for future reference. If you are muggles you should probably go with one of us to be sure you can go through," the mother suggested.

"Thank you Mrs…?" Clint said.

"Oh, Molly Weasley, this is Ginny. Ron is the second youngest and he is starting this year," Molly introduced them.

"Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers, Bruce and Mateo Banner," Tony rattled through them all by way of introductions. "If me and Clint go through with Mateo, Ron do you mind if Steve and Bruce head through with you? And Mrs Weasley if you would be so kind to take Natasha and Pepper through?"

"Not at all, Mateo was it? How about you go first?" Molly smiled encouragingly.

"If this is a practical joke I am not going to be amused," Mateo said quietly to the two adults gripping his trolley with him.

"Neither am I," Tony agreed.

The three walked swiftly towards the very solid looking wall and almost stopped as they reached it. However they managed to force themselves to carry on and after a period of darkness they arrived at a single bustling platform full of children and adults wearing a wide variety of clothing. Above the crowd a plume of white smoke could be seen, and when the people moved a scarlet steam engine could be seen parked at the station. Behind it were many carriages already teeming with rowdy children finding their friends and places to sit.

Ron with Steve and Bruce arrived just as they moved out of the way, Ron looked exhilarated and excited while the two adults were still looking a little apprehensive.

"Thanks," Mateo smiled at the ginger who nodded and disappeared towards the train without a word.

Soon after the Avengers were together again and followed Molly's advice by getting Mateo installed in a compartment. Steve attracted a bit of attention when he easily lifted the trunk completely by himself and carried it onto the train solo. There were a few people who seemed to recognise the famous group, but even these few people seemed to not believe that they were right that the Avengers were here. As a result of this disbelief they remained largely unnoticed and unhindered by fans. Although Tony seemed indifferent to this he was secretly glad that they could act as a family and not be swamped by people wanting to talk or get autographs.

With his owl and trunk stashed in an empty compartment Mateo lingered on the platform with the unconventional family. For once the men dropped their macho personas in public and willingly hugged the boy, which Mateo was grateful about.

"I'll write as soon as I can," Mateo promised as Bruce hugged him tightly.

"If you don't I think you'll find Big Green knocking on the door of your school looking for you," Tony joked.

"It's only three months. And if you get onto that Quidditch team like Dumbledore mentioned then we will see you sooner," Bruce said, almost to comfort himself as well as Mateo.

Only when the train whistled loudly and the students started piling on to the train did Bruce let go of Mateo. He didn't mean to swamp the child, but Mateo had been the only constant in his life for years, and was the only sure-fire thing that could keep the Other Guy in check. It was selfish, but Bruce wondered how he would cope without the constant presence of the easy going child.

"You've got this Dad, you have Tony to look after you now," Mateo smiled jokingly, but Bruce could see the sadness in his eyes.

"If Tony has his way then the Other Guy will be out all the time," Bruce said with certainty.

"Hmm perhaps that isn't such a good thing. But don't worry, I'm certain you are better at controlling the Other Guy than you think you are. I'm just an added distraction during those times, you'd have everything covered without me," Mateo hugged him one last time. "Love you Dad."

"Love you too, now get on the train," Bruce ruffled his hair and nudged him to the nearest door to his compartment.

Mateo stood at the door waving until his family was out of sight before sighing and wandering back to his compartment, which was thankfully still empty. As much as it would have been nice to be forced to interact with other students Mateo was quite happy to have some time to himself.

He opened the window a tiny crack to allow air circulation before settling down with a book, his back against the window and his feet up on the seat next to him. The window frame dug into his back a little uncomfortably but it meant he could see anyone coming into his compartment. He also wouldn't end up getting hit in the eyes by the descending sun in the evening.

From what he could gather the train journey would take at least eight hours, so he had ensured his books were near the top of his trunk. He also let his owl out of its cage as he was still uncomfortable with the idea of caging the animal for any length of time. With the owl on his shoulder and a book in hand Mateo settled down to wait out the long journey ahead of him.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

"So, shall we see about getting the English equivalent of shawarma?" Tony asked as the train and all its carriages disappeared into the distance.

"Has that become your comfort food?" Steve asked.

"Hey it's tasty, filling, and we first ate it as a celebratory meal," the billionaire shrugged.

"It's not even noon," Nat pointed out.

"…Movie then shawarma?" Tony suggested as a compromise.

"Alright," Clint agreed.

Tony slung an arm around Pepper's waist and lead the way back to the entrance to the muggle side of the train station, with Clint and Steve on their heels. The four of them didn't notice that one of their team wasn't following, although a second had dropped back to get him.

"Come on Bruce, he'll be fine," Natasha said gently as she placed a hand on the scientist's shoulder. "And if he isn't he can send us an owl and Clint will be in the Quinjet to get him faster than you can say 'magic'."

For a while the assassin worried that she hadn't been heard, and that she would have to do something more drastic like slap the man to get his attention. However a good ten seconds after she spoke the man sighed and finally pulled his eyes off the horizon, specifically the spot where the train had disappeared. "I suppose you're right. Thanks Natasha."

"It's what teammates are for," she shrugged the gratitude off. "Come on, I don't trust Tony to make a subtle re-entry to Kings Cross."

"He has Pepper to control him," Bruce said as they started walking away from the platform edge.

"Even she sometimes finds it impossible to manage that walking disaster," Natasha's comment couldn't be refuted. Bruce merely rolled his eyes and picked up the pace so that they could catch up with their friends.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Ron Weasley was not sure what to make of the boy who had appeared with a huge array of adults with him. The boy had black hair which was about seven inches long that he tucked behind his ears despite it seeming to want to curl slightly. His green eyes were incredibly bright, while his well-tanned skin and quite toned look hinted at a lifestyle that could either be that of work or of leisure. Looking at his tailored jacket and smart outfit Ron guessed leisure and resented him for it straight away. Normally if Ron was at odds with another person his age he could at least be proud that he was taller than them, however in this case with this new boy he was once again thwarted as they were the same height.

The adults gathered around the boy shared no visible link apart from one adult who had the same dark curly hair, and Ron wandered why the rest of them were there. He could hardly voice his displeasure when two of them, obviously Mateo's dad and the guy called Steve, came to stand on either side of him to get through the barrier. Ron had wanted to make his first trip as a student to Hogwarts on his own, but the extremely muscled guy to his left made him swallow his protests.

"Sorry, we realise this isn't cool," Bruce said to his right.

"'S'all right," Ron mumbled.

As soon as the adults had let go he muttered about finding a compartment and legged it to find his brothers. Fred and George were being annoying as usual, but they at least helped get his trunk on board and stashed it with theirs. Ron wasn't certain that he wanted to endure the entire train journey with them, and he knew that Harry Potter should be in his year. So after saying goodbye to his mother and Ginny, which involved more berating and teasing from his family, he started to trawl the train.

He knew that it was often tradition that the upper years took he forward spots on the train near the Prefect compartments. When he reached halfway down the train and started to encounter shorter students Ron started to actively look at each person he passed. However despite checking each compartment and student he didn't have any luck.

Eventually he got to the back of the train and found the compartments that were mostly empty apart from odd couples and nervous first years without friends. A bushy haired girl and slightly tearful boy were in one compartment, and although Ron was slightly hopeful when he spotted the black hair he soon realised his mistake. He had not had much interaction with the Longbottom boy, but he knew the almost-squib when he saw him. He didn't fancy getting into any conversation with the boy so he hurried on.

Too soon he reached the last compartment before the staff carriage and found that Mateo boy alone reading a book with his owl perched on his shoulder, its head under its wing. For a Muggleborn the guy seemed pretty at ease with the weird and wonderful world of magic, or at least he hadn't been phased by the barrier entrance. At the moment he looked quite content sitting alone, his nose was buried in a potions book.

He hadn't managed to find the Boy-Who-Lived, he was obviously not on the train, so Ron was limited in what he could do. Seeing as his options consisted of spending the journey with Longbottom, his brothers, or this potentially interesting boy Ron didn't think there was much deciding to be done. If Mateo turned out to be a self-absorbed, spoiled brat Ron could leave, if he was interesting then he could make a muggle friend.

"Do you mind? Everywhere else is full," Ron said by way of greeting as he slid the compartment door open.

"I take it all the other compartments full of couples wanting some alone time?" Mateo asked wryly.

Ron was surprised by Mateo's accent, as now he had spoken more than two words he could hear it. He was no expert in accents, but it seemed to be a weird mix of English with a few American twangs and something else thrown in at times.

"They are mostly filled with close couples, yes," Ron grimaced.

"Come on in then. Where's your trunk?"

"My brothers have it in their compartment, but spending the entire train journey with them would risk getting pranked and I've had enough of that over the summer," Ron said honestly.

"I assume you're talking about the twins? We saw you as we got into the station and they looked rather mischievous," Mateo agreed with a wry smile.

"Yes those two, they are the worst troublemakers at Hogwarts at the moment, but they are mostly harmless to anyone apart from the Slytherins. What house do you think you will be in?" Ron asked, almost cautiously. However the way he had found the boy with his nose in a book it was almost obvious where he would likely end up.

"I'm not sure, probably Ravenclaw or maybe Gryffindor. I'm a bit too strong-minded to be in Hufflepuff, and Slytherin doesn't sound like my type," Mateo thought aloud.

"My family has always been in Gryffindor so that is likely where I am going," Ron replied.

The door to the compartment opened briskly and the Longbottom boy nervously stuck his head through the door.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Trevor has hopped off again," he said unhappily.

"He's in your hood I think," Mateo said after quickly looking at the boy.

Longbottom checked, and indeed found the amphibian hiding there. "How did you know?"

"Well toads like dark places where they won't dry out. If he wasn't in your pockets then he would unlikely have travelled far and run the risk of getting lost in a very dry and hot place, so the hood was a likely hiding spot. I don't suppose that before you put your cloak on you left in on a table near Trevor for a while?" Mateo explained easily. "Would you like to join us?"

"There was a girl helping me look," the boy began nervously.

"The more the merrier, go get her," Mateo replied and the boy smiled and trotted off, his hands firmly grasping a slightly disgruntled looking Trevor.

"That's Neville Longbottom, I'm surprised he managed to get into Hogwarts at all, everyone says he is hopeless," Ron explained once the door was shut.

"Perhaps all he needs is some friends and some encouragement," Mateo suggested.

"You could be wasting your time there mate," Ron waited for Mateo to reply but it seemed that he was ignoring Ron's comment.

Mateo was surprised by Ron's narrow minded view, but decided to return to his book rather than to cause an argument. He was not bothered about making things awkward with the first person he was able to talk to on this journey, although he was determined to give Neville the benefit of the doubt unlike Ron. It seemed obvious that they had had very different childhoods, Ron seemed to feel that a shy and hesitant person was not worth his time. Mateo knew from experience that such a person could definitely be worth the effort of drawing them from their shell.

Five minutes of silence later the door opened once more to reveal the bushy haired girl Ron had seen earlier, already dressed in her robes, and Neville. Mateo smiled warmly and shut his book with a snap, causing his owl to wake up grumpily.

"Sorry Garuda," Mateo said to appease the owl, who did seem a bit less annoyed. "Hello you two."

"Thanks for offering to let us share your compartment; it would be nice to talk to others in our year before getting to Hogwarts and perhaps learning a bit more. You've obviously met Neville, and I am Hermione Granger," Hermione chattered at a fast rate.

"Calm down there," Mateo laughed in a friendly manner. For a second Hermione looked hurt but Mateo quickly flashed her a warm smile, "We have the entire journey to get to know each other."

"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron muttered.

"I'm Mateo Banner. So are you from a wizarding family?" he directed at Hermione.

"No both of my parents are muggles, they are dentists. It took Professor McGonagall some explaining to convince them," Hermione said, her eyes narrowing at Mateo as if she was trying to figure something out. When she obviously gave up trying to recall the bit of information she shrugged and carried on, "Neville told me he is from a long line of wizards, what about you two?"

"The Weasley's are purebloods, although our line isn't as long as the Longbottom line. My dad is mad about muggles though, he collects lots of things and tries to figure out how they work. We've started a bet on how many plugs he actually has got in his shed," Ron said in embarrassment.

"I'm from a muggle family too," Mateo answered.

"Where abouts are you from? Your accent is not completely British," Hermione asked in an almost accusatory tone.

"I grew up in England, but then me and Dad travelled the world for four years, almost five, before we wound up in America. So my accent is probably a mix of English, Indian and American," Mateo explained.

"India? How long were you living out there? Why were you out there?" Hermione rattled off. Neville looked happy to be included and to just listen to the others talk. Ron looked a little peeved to not be the centre of attention of the conversation but he also seemed interested in the discussion despite that.

"My Dad was on the run for a while so we travelled to stay hidden. India is a lovely country that isn't too underdeveloped whilst not too well linked with the rest of the world. Well, the bits we settled in were like that, and as we in little backwater villages Dad could be relatively free to work. He worked as a doctor, helping people who couldn't afford mainstream medical care," Mateo said.

"Hang on, you said your surname was Banner? Is your Dad is called Bruce?" Hermione asked even more excited than before.

"Yes," Mateo said slowly, "I assume you saw that interview Tony did?"

"Interview?" Ron chipped in suspiciously.

"There are a group of muggle heroes called the Avengers that saved America from an invasion over the summer. One is a God from another planet, and his brother was the one leading the invasion, one is a super soldier from WW2, two are master assassins, another is a billionaire who has a metal suit that flies, and then there is Mateo's Dad," Hermione explained rapidly.

"And what does he do?" Ron asked, realising that these were probably the people he had met.

"He had an accident many years ago and now he can change into a green giant that is pretty much indestructible," Mateo explained vaguely as he realised that Gamma rays were likely beyond wizard knowledge.

"English muggles have gone crazy over the idea, you should see some of the merchandise being sold," Hermione told Mateo, "they have onesies with each outfit on them, shields, bows, Hulk gloves, toy Mjolnirs, Iron Man masks…"

"We haven't really looked too deeply into what they produce, although Stark Industries are heading up organising what is released, seeing as the Avengers are patented. We needed some way of paying for all the poptarts and waffles Thor and Clint were eating! So Tony does probably know everything being sold, he did insist on buying us all one of every Avengers t-shirt. He also found a shop selling Avengers cupcakes which he bought dozens of to amuse us," Mateo laughed.

"So a muggle can fly? I don't believe you," Ron said adamantly. He latched onto pretty much the only part of the last few sentences he understood and butted in, and Mateo was actually a bit grateful he did. Having another muggle raised friend would be useful, but Hermione's personality was a bit exhausting.

"I have a poster in my trunk that Tony gave me, I'll find it," Mateo gently scooped his owl up and sat it on Hermione's hand before jumping and pulling himself up onto the luggage rack.

"That was pretty cool," Neville spoke up for the first time.

"I took lessons off Hawkeye, he loves getting up to high places if he can," Mateo explained as he rummaged through his trunk.

Two minutes later the poster dropped to the floor before Mateo swung back into his seat with the photo album. It took a little bit of time but after seeing the poster and numerous news articles with pictures Ron and Neville were convinced of the existence of the Avengers and their talents. Mateo was in the process of returning everything to his trunk when the compartment doors opened again. As he was above eye line the three new arrivals didn't seem to notice him, but he soon realised that the lead boy was the one he had met in Diagon Alley whilst buying robes.

"Well I'm not surprised by the collection in this compartment, a mudblood, a blood traitor and a squib," the boy drawled.

"Shove off Malfoy," Ron said angrily.

Or what, Weasley? This is a free train and we can do what we like, unless you think you can make us leave?" the blonde carried on gleefully.

The two muscles behind him cracked their knuckles to emphasise their presence as grunts.

"We probably can do that," Mateo slid down from the rack and landed in the middle of the compartment, and was secretly pleased that he landed solidly on his feet without falling over.

"It's you again, Mudblood."

"Yes, me again. I see you still haven't learnt any manners or the ability to think," Mateo said coolly.

"Ah yes, I never did explain who I was did I? Draco Malfoy, you'll find the Malfoy's are one of the most influential and oldest families in Wizarding Britain. We easily outstrip the destitute Weasley's, and the Longbottom's too now seeing as this is the best that they can produce," Draco said smugly. Ron and Neville both flushed in anger and shame respectively, which made Mateo have to take a deep breath to calm himself down.

"And I am Mateo Banner, son of the Hulk, godson of Iron Man and honorary nephew to the rest of the Avengers. Your Dad might have money and pedigree but mine can tear apart a city in twenty minutes with his bare hands. So by all means carry on believing your delusion that you are the most powerful man here, because I can tell you that you really aren't," Mateo said coldly.

The temperature of the room, which had already been cool enough since Malfoy's entrance, plummeted as the two boys glared at each other. Mateo was slightly regretting opening his mouth but he hated bullies. Not only was it a legacy of being degraded by the Dursleys but also of having seen what his Dad had been reduced to because of Ross's influence. He wasn't going to let anyone get away with bullying others in his presence, which caused his verbal assault against the pureblood.

"What makes you so brave Mudblood? Your father isn't here to save you now," Draco smiled as his two bodyguards shifted closer.

"The fact that American laws state I can practice magic at home, even with muggles in the same room as long as they are family. I know for a fact none of you will have touched a wand yet, nor can you perform magic," Mateo bluffed.

"You can't do magic yet either, we aren't at school yet," Hermione said nervously.

"Who cares? I know quite a few spells already and I can easily lay you out. If I get expelled then I get back on the train and go back to America. There are numerous schools in America I can look at, and they wouldn't be half as stuck up about accepting a Mudblood into their midst," Mateo shrugged nonchalantly. To emphasise his point he drew his wand from its place up his arm, before twirling it for dramatic effect and settling into a stance he had learnt from Natasha for sword fighting. "So, do you want to give it a try? I'm happy to let you leave peacefully now and I swear none of us shall speak of this again."

Draco looked at Mateo's ready stance and calm look before sniffing and pushing his two crones out of the door. "You're not worth my time Mudblood."

"That was awesome!" Ron burst out as soon as the door shut once more after the three boys.

"Would you really have duelled him? You definitely would have been expelled and it wouldn't have been worth it. Although it was nice of you to defend us from his prejudices," Hermione said disapprovingly.

"I haven't even tried to cast one spell yet! My godfather was pestering me constantly to try _anything_ ,but I didn't want to muck up and blow up the tower. But with Malfoy the trick was to act confident and bluff my way through until he backed down," Mateo laughed at their faces as he tucked his wand back up his sleeve.

"What if he had accepted?" Neville asked slowly. He had a small smile on his face and he obviously also appreciated Mateo's defence of them.

"I would have insisted that we didn't duel here because of the likelihood of hitting innocents. Hopefully in the corridor we would have drawn attention and been stopped. If not, I would have just punched him and legged it down the carriages until someone paid attention to the screaming children! But the thing was that I acted confident enough that he backed down. Even if you don't feel it, projecting an air of confidence will get you quite far in life," Mateo advised Neville.

"Anything off the trolley dears?" their conversation was interrupted by a cheerful looking older lady with a trolley ladened with sweets.

Mateo bought a couple of chocolate frogs and a pumpkin pasty, then a handful of other sweets for a rather glum looking Ron who couldn't afford any.

The tension slowly faded in the compartment as they headed north, and Ron seemed less standoffish while Hermione calmed down from her frantic pace of talking. Even Neville was coaxed out of his shell slightly which Mateo was happy about.

"So what houses are people thinking they will go into? Gryffindor for me!" Ron said with certainty.

"Ravenclaw or Gryffindor I think," Mateo said again.

"Not Slytherin?" Ron said sarcastically.

"I probably could get on well with them for scheming but I'd probably get eaten alive because of my heritage," Mateo pointed out. "Besides, not all sneaky people are in Slytherin as your brothers aren't in that house. So, everyone else?"

"Probably the same for me, Professor Dumbledore was a Gryffindor so it would be great to be in his house," Hermione gushed.

"Any house really, I'm happy to be going to Hogwarts," Neville mumbled.

"Where did your parents go?" Mateo asked.

"They were Gryffindors, but I don't think I am brave enough to be there," Neville admitted.

"You may not feel brave at the moment, but I think with a bit of confidence you would be a great man. You just haven't had the best start in life, trust me. Besides, you might not actively charge into action but if you refuse to stand down from a fight that makes you just as brave as anyone," Mateo said firmly.

Neville flashed him a small smile before Hermione interrupted to alert them to their proximity to Hogwarts. It seemed that she had been the one paying the most attention to their journey and how far they had gone. The sun was barely showing above the mountains, and the carriages were lit more by the lanterns rather than the natural light outside.

Mateo reluctantly put Garuda back in his cage whilst Ron and Hermione left, him to get his robes and her to give them privacy, and Mateo quickly changed into his robes. He was glad to have the continuity of his leather bracelet from India and the gift that Bruce had given him before he left. It was a small good luck necklace, a swastika **(A/N: see end please!)** with a tiny ruby, emerald, sapphire and tiger eye embedded between the arms, while the rest of the surface was covered in swirled etchings.

The robes felt odd once Mateo was fully dressed, and Neville silently smiled at his uncomfortable fidgeting. Mateo did notice this and smiled back at his tentative friend to encourage him whilst sliding his wand holster onto his belt and sheathing his wand in it. Initially Mateo had been slightly unsure about wearing his holster at his hip but Clint and Natasha had pointed out it would be easier to get to his wand there. If he wore his wand up his sleeve then it might take him a few precious seconds of fumbling to get his wand out when attacked. And Mateo now noticed that with his ornate wand handle sticking out of it it looked like he was armed with a dagger. When they all met up again at the carriage door Neville and Ron gave him an odd look, mostly aimed at his wand. Mateo guessed it was not a popular method but he liked it so he ignored them.

When the train finally slowed to a halt the four disembarked onto the platform together, and stood gazing at their surroundings. The platform was the only lit structure within eyesight, which didn't necessarily mean much as there seemed to be forest in all directions. Even the platform had plants growing in borders or from hanging baskets, which leant it all a very quaint feel.

Whilst all the older students filed off the platform in a specific direction Ron stopped them from following. He knew they had to go a different route after the Gamekeeper called Hagrid, so they fought against the flow of students to where a huge man stood holding a similarly outsized lantern. The giant man had been calling ever since they had gotten off the train but they had been too busy looking around to really pay attention to him.

"Firs' years! Firs' years this way!" the man called above the chatter of the students.

Mateo watched the man anxiously search the slowly gathering crowd of shortest students. He noticed that the huge man's gaze seemed to brighten when he saw Mateo, but the unscarred forehead had him sighing despondently before he carried on searching. Their group grew slowly from their quartet, some arriving alone whilst others came over in small groups.

Once the flow of students had ceased and it looked like everyone was there Hagrid motioned for them to follow him down a darkened path in the opposite direction of the rest of the students. The path was quite wide but made uneven due to the roots of the trees that created an avenue they travelled down. With the clear sky above showing the first stars of the evening, and the trees around them their journey was quite beautiful. Or at least it would be if they weren't paying more attention to trying not to trip over the roots and rocks below their feet.

Although Hagrid's lantern was supersized, it was still rather ineffective in lighting the way for those near the back of the line. No one had been exactly eager to follow immediately behind Hagrid as they had left the platform, but as the line had stretched out Mateo and his comrades had found themselves at near the back.

After Neville stumbled for the third time and Mateo caught him he started to get frustrated with the lack of light. There was no obvious end to their journey as there was no brightly lit building in sight, so they could be left stumbling around in the dark for ages to come.

He had read about a spell that could produce light, and the mechanics seemed pretty simple, so he drew his wand and took a deep breath. The boy felt a bit uneasy with what he was going to do, he had refused to attempt any magic without instruction for Tony, and now he was preparing to try it now. The only difference was before he would have been entertaining the billionaire, whereas now he wanted to actually help someone.

"Lumos," he whispered, and almost dropped his wand when it lit up just as bright as Hagrid's lantern.

The other first years around him were at first slightly disorientated by the sudden addition of light, but then they were quite happy to be able to see better once their eyes adjusted to the light. Draco glared at him, probably thinking he was showing off but Mateo pointedly ignored the Malfoy heir.

"Is that better Neville?" Mateo asked.

"Much better thanks, I have a habit of tripping over even in daylight," Neville blushed.

"Tha's an impressive bit o' work there," Hagrid called back.

"No offence sir but I really don't want to spend my first week in hospital with a broken leg," Mateo called back, while the others chuckled at him.

They rounded the last corner and came across their first view of Hogwarts, rising on the other side of the lake majestically. Mateo had to admit that the walk was worth it, and the castle immediately gained a special place in his heart. Each window was lit up and helped make the castle shine against the starry background, whilst the mirror-like lake below reflected everything once more. Although he didn't say anything Mateo privately agreed with every sentiment uttered about the beauty of the sight.

There hadn't been any images of the school anywhere in Diagon Alley so the first years had had to base their opinions of it on descriptions. Now that he actually saw it Mateo felt that the authors hadn't done the building justice. The very air seemed to shimmer with magic and from the many awed looks on the other children's faces Mateo knew they were all struck speechless by the sight and sensations.

Once at the boats Mateo extinguished the light from his wand so that they could enjoy the boat trip in darkness. Ron, Mateo, Hermione and Neville joined together to snag a boat together and silently enjoyed the journey across the lake. Mateo had silently congratulated himself for hiding his unease at having to get into a rickety wooden boat, he still hated water travel. But the boats seemed to be enchanted and didn't even rock as they got in, and their journey across the lake was smooth and even. The sight of the castle lit up against a starry backdrop was one that Mateo was not going to forget any time soon, and it helped him forget his unease.

Hagrid left them on the steps before the Great Hall, apparently to get another teacher to lead them on. The gathered first years started to whisper nervously together, and apparently one common topic was being discussed.

"What are they on about?" Mateo asked innocently.

"Harry Potter is supposed to be in this year with us, but he isn't here," Ron whispered back.

"There's a reason he isn't here, Dumbledore won't dare risk his golden boy being corrupted by the students so he is probably still stuck in hiding like the coward he is," Draco spoke up.

"Draco what have I said about thinking before you say anything," Mateo said over the unhappy mutterings of the majority of the other first years.

"Shut up Mudblood," Draco snapped back. Again the majority of the students gasped at this, and even those who had been in support of Draco's earlier comments on Harry Potter seemed a little shocked at his bold use of the taboo word.

"I will when you learn to think before speaking. As you pointed out I do not know much of this world, but in muggle society it is a bit idiotic to be one of a minority and insult the majority's belief," Mateo advised, unphazed by the slur against him.

"Doesn't that word offend you?" Hermione asked him when the crowd had returned to uneasily muttering to each other.

"Why should it? Words only have power over people if you let them take root, and they lose their potency if you ignore them. Besides, I've never had a nickname before," Mateo said calmly.

The assembled group chuckled at his nonchalant attitude while Draco silently fumed in the background.

"Oh hey you two, it's nice to see you again," Mateo said as he caught sight of the Patil twins.

Before anyone could speak again a formidable witch appeared at the top of the stairs and halted any retort Malfoy could have been forming.

 **A/N: Right, I have directed you down here from the middle of the chapter for a good reason. In case people don't know, the swastika is a symbol of good luck in the Hindu religion. The Aryans borrowed it as a symbol of goodness, and then it got hijacked by the Nazis as a symbol for their purity ideals. So Harry Potter is not a Nazi, he is just used to the rooted histories of Indian culture and has a good luck symbol with him.**


	24. Chapter 24 - Sorting

**A/N: Erm yeah, so hello again! I am really sorry for missing two updates, work is rather mental. There has been a lot to learn so my brain has melted each day and trying to think has been last on my list of things to do when I get home. Although my instructor has been really impressed with my progress, and I've learnt some tricks she hadn't discovered after two years on the job!**

 **And add to learning a whole new computer programme I've been caring for my sister… And we are getting a puppy! We've wanted one since our last dog died three years ago, and seeing as my sister has another ten weeks recuperation period we decided to bite the bullet and get one. She's a Jack Russell cross Spaniel and we get her in a month! So a lot of things to buy, preparations and planning to do, yay!**

 **So yes, I'm afraid to say that for the foreseeable future I am going to be reducing my updates to only one a week, probably Mondays. I'd rather have the week to slowly chip at a chapter and produce something good than blurt something out to meet the two update schedule and ruin the story.**

 **Thanks for every new follow, favourite and review since my last update. I haven't had the chance to read them all sorry, but thanks everyone anyway!**

Chapter Twenty Four – Sorting

Although Mateo had been acting like he was at ease with the conflict between him and Draco he was in fact feeling rather awkward. He could now understand why his Dad often got the odd urge to wring his hands when in stressful situations. All through his childhood with Bruce, and especially whilst on the Helicarrier, Mateo had watched the man play with his hands and hadn't really known why. As the tension had mounted it was only the lessons he had had from Natasha and Clint that stopped him fidgeting nervously. So he stood trying to look nonchalant with his hands tightly fisted in his pockets, until the old woman started talking and attracted everyone's attention.

Professor McGonagall sounded as strict as she looked in her high collared dark green and black robes, with a tall witch's hat. After greeting them all she went on to introduce the basics of the school for those who were unfamiliar with the history of the establishment. Once she was sure they understood the basics she led them up the grand stairs they had waited on and through two heavy wooden doors covered with ornate ironworking. Beyond them was a large hall with thousands of floating candles illuminating the room, while the roof above was enchanted to look like the night sky outside. The lowest part of the walls were wood panelled and far above, partially hidden by the enchanted sky, thick wooden beams supported the wall. Stained glass windows were set into the walls to let light in during the day, but revealed only blackness that evening. Stone eagles protruding from the walls held large braziers that emitted flames and light.

Four long tables were almost filled with students, but at the far end the tables were empty. Places were set there though, and Mateo guessed that was where the new first years would go to sit once they were sorted. Each house was dressed similarly in the standard black robes and simple black pointed hats, but their ties and crests on their robes differed. Mateo was once again near the back of the group and so was able to see Malfoy instantly looking to the table furthest on the left as they walked down, whilst Ron looked to his brothers just on their right.

At the head of the room a table on a raised platform was a table set at a right angle to the rest, and was occupied by the teaching staff. Mateo was able to pick out a few staff members he knew or recognised, such as Hagrid who sat at one end and whose hands were as large as one teacher's head who sat near him. The black robed man Mateo had seen in the apothecary was sat next to a turbaned man, and while the latter looked very nervous but happy the former looked ready to start hurling insults at the students below. Dumbledore was sitting in the middle of the table and smiled benignly at the approaching first years. As his gaze landed on Mateo he failed to completely disguise his look of triumph. Luckily the old wizard did hide it after a millisecond, but Mateo had already caught it and frowned back at him.

Before the teachers table stood a stall that supported a rather raggedy looking pointed hat. Once the first years had assembled, a rip in the middle of the hat opened and the hat began to sing. As it ended the returning students applauded politely before McGonagall explained the purpose of the hat. Ron let out a huge sigh of relief, it seemed that his trickster brothers had convinced him they had to undertake a practical test to be sorted. Mateo almost smiled in amusement but that was halted when experienced a jolt of nerves. The names of the first years were being called alphabetically by surname which made him the second to be called after a Hannah Abbott, if Albus was keeping to his word.

"Banner, Mateo," McGonagall called loud enough for everyone to hear her, once Hannah Abbott had taken her seat at Hufflepuff.

There was a ripple of mutterings and a few isolated cheers when he stepped forward. Two thirds of the room looked confused by this reaction, but Mateo smiled at the hall before the hat slid over his eyes and blocked his sight of people craning to get a look of him.

" _Now this is interesting. Why are you hiding yourself Harry Potter?"_ the hat whispered in his ear. In the two seconds it took for Mateo to register the hat had actually _spoken_ to him he went from curious to terrified that it knew who he truly was. He quickly figured out the possibility of the hat being a mind reader explained how it knew, but he was hardly reassured that something knew his true identity. But he hoped that that was the case, rather than Dumbledore having told everyone the truth.

" _Because I want to live my life without having the world expecting miracles from me, I want to be myself and enjoy my life without people constantly questioning my motives,"_ Mateo huffed in reply to the hat rather than worrying about the hat's source of knowledge.

" _You aren't going to get much privacy with your new adopted family,"_ the Hat pointed out.

" _True, but the media are more limited in their printing by Tony's lawyers. Plus as a child of an Avenger, and not actually one, means I am only a passing curiosity rather than a focus point. I can walk around freely, but if I was Harry Potter I would be constantly harassed by inconsiderate wizards,"_ Mateo argued.

" _Would you break your anonymity if you were needed? If Voldemort was to rise again would you act against him?"_ the Hat pressed.

"When _he does, and_ if _Harry Potter was truly needed, then yes I shall consider it,"_ the boy responded to the animated object. _"Why the curiosity?"_

" _As much as you hate the idea you already know that the fate of the Wizarding World rests on your shoulders. I am not allowed to reveal to the Headmaster what I see in the student's heads, but it is reassuring for me to know you are not following a dark path."_

" _Sorry, before we go any further can I ask a question?"_ Mateo cut in.

" _You want to know why you were targeted? Why_ you _have to fight this war?"_ The hat replied easily

" _You can see that's exactly what I want to know,"_ the concept of a mind reading cranial accessory still amazed Mateo.

" _It is not my knowledge to share,"_ was the short reply.

" _But it concerns me, it's my life being screwed with and my future that could be torn apart by a future war,"_ protested Mateo.

" _All lives get torn apart by war,"_ said the hat.

" _True, sorry it was a little harsh of me. But you know what I mean, Voldemort has a grudge match against me and for some reason instead of letting me stay safe Dumbledore seems determined to throw me into the frontline of the war. Why?"_

" _I don't know the whole truth, I cannot read a mind unless I am actually on someone's head. However I have listened to some of the conversations Albus has had on the subject,"_ the hat seemed reluctant to carry on, but did after a short pause. _"There was a prophecy made about Voldemort and the one who would have the power to stop him. I don't know the entirety of it but the criteria marked out a child born at the end of July to a family who had defied Voldemort three times."_

" _I need to know the rest of that prophecy, who knows it?"_ Mateo asked intently.

" _Only Dumbledore and one other knew the entire prophecy that I know of, but there would be a copy of it in the Department of Mysteries where all prophecy records are kept,"_ Mateo was glad the hat was being so compliant in replying.

" _But I can't exactly walk straight in and claim it without explaining how I know that there's a prophecy on me… I'll come up with something,"_ sighed Mateo in frustration.

" _I don't doubt you will,"_ the hat sounded amused.

" _Do you truly want to help me, or was that just for you to further analyse me?"_ Mateo asked, genuinely interested in the answer.

" _For me to sort you I have to consider every facet of your personality, to know you are prepared to abandon your peaceful existence to fight is reassuring. And knowing you will be able to figure out and find a way to win is greatly important. But I do feel that it would be beneficial to you to have some help along the way,"_ the Hat explained.

" _I take it you have already ruled out Hufflepuff, and possibly also Slytherin? You have probably seen how badly I get on with Malfoy and they would never accept me for the artificial heritage I have,"_ Mateo dropped the topic of the prophecy for now. Instead he turned his attention to being sorted, and unconsciously nudged the memories of his interactions with Draco to the surface for the Hat to see easier.

" _With that resolved I would consider you for Gryffindor, but your intelligence would suit you well for Ravenclaw, and your loyalty to Neville Longbottom makes you a perfect candidate for Hufflepuff. So where to put you…"_ mused the Sorting Hat.

" _It might be a bit obvious if I am in Gryffindor, although I have a pretty well established life as Mateo I'm not exactly dissimilar to Harry Potter. Being in that house might make people look too closely and ask too many questions. However as you say, I want to help Neville and I think he could be Gryffindor material. Which house would be best for me to help him?"_ he deferred to the Hat's wisdom.

" _You're reckless enough to be a Gryffindor though, coming into the lair of the man who has tried to control you since you were orphaned. But I digress, I hold some sway with the Headmaster, if you wish to be with Ravenclaw then I can ensure that your house is matched with whatever house the Longbottom heir ends up in for classes this year,"_ the Hat reassured him.

" _Then I think Ravenclaw if you would be so good as to announce it,"_ Mateo decided.

" _Good luck, Mateo Banner. And remember, forgiveness is the jewel of the brave._ Better be RAVENCLAW!" the Hat shouted the last three words aloud.

The second table from the right erupted into cheers, the loudest of which seemed to come from those that Mateo assumed were Muggleborn and half-bloods. Mateo sat in the first empty seat next to his housemates and shook a few hands offered to him before he turned back to the sorting.

By listening to the whispered commentary around him Mateo learnt he had taken a rather long time to sort, apparently almost five minutes. In comparison some of the first years after him were sorted immediately, such as those who were from long family lines. When Hermione was called Mateo desperately tried to make eye contact, and smiled encouragingly at her when they did. It seemed that the Hat took a longer time than usual to sort her too, but then eventually it called out Ravenclaw after three minutes.

"I'm glad you're with me," Mateo whispered to her as she sat next to him.

Hermione smiled radiantly in surprise and joy, and leaned closer so that no one could overhear her. "I did still want to be in Gryffindor, but seeing as you were sorted here I thought Ravenclaw would also be pretty good."

Mateo smiled back and they turned back to their peers. The next person that he had a vested interest in their sorting was Neville, who was so nervous he tripped over the steps onto the way up to the Sorting Hat. Once there it took the object the longest period of time so far to sort him, apart from Mateo himself. When it eventually called out Gryffindor Neville was so ecstatic he ran off with the Hat on his head. Some in the hall laughed at him, but Mateo made sure his cheers drowned out some of the derision of those in Slytherin behind him.

Draco Malfoy was sorted before the Hat made complete contact with his head, and he swaggered off to the table he had been looking at when they all entered. He sneered at Mateo as he passed the seated boy, which Mateo smiled at and then returned to ignoring him as the next person approached the stool.

A palpable tension had started to rise throughout the sorting, and it reached a crescendo as the list passed O. When 'Harry Potter' was called, you could hear a pin drop as everyone held their breath. But no one moved, and after a solid minute of waiting people started to talk restlessly. Soon the room was in uproar as people demanded to know where the Boy-Who-Lived was.

"Silence!" Albus Dumbledore eventually stood and called for order.

It took a while for everyone to be seated and silent once more, but once they were the Headmaster spoke once more. "It appears Harry Potter has decided to not attend Hogwarts this year. I discussed his options with him over the summer and it seems he chose other methods of furthering his education. I can assure you that he is safe and sound. Now we should continue sorting those who have chosen to join our numbers and welcome those who are deserving of our attention."

Mateo joined in talking with Hermione as the hall rumbled with discontent. However Professor McGonagall's voice caused the talking to cease and the sorting to continue.

Ron was sorted to Gryffindor unsurprisingly, and soon the last student was into Slytherin. The witch gathered the stool, hat, and scroll up and took them into an antechamber behind the staff table whilst the Headmaster spoke.

"Now before we begin our delicious feast I have a few words, and these are them. Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak! Thank you!" Albus said cheerily and sat down.

"I swear that man has a screw loose," Mateo muttered to hide his surprise as the plates in front of them filled with food.

It was an impressive trick and he would be very interested to find out how it worked, but currently he was more interested in the wide variety of dishes in front of him that ranged from mashed potato to stacks of ribs. He gave the bowl of mint humbugs a very confused glance but decided to ignore it. It seemed that the food they had eaten for lunch had been hours and hours ago, the nerves and excitement had caused skewed his sensations that day.

"I think it is just an act, you have seen how commanding he can be, and he wouldn't be head of Hogwarts if he wasn't smart and able to run lots of different things at once," Hermione reprimanded him.

"He almost has it perfected," Mateo continued and Hermione rolled her eyes and smiled.

Mateo carefully selected a number of vegetable dishes, and slowly ate his way around his plate. Kevin Entwhistle, a boy with short and spikey brown hair and blue eyes, sitting next to him was the only other Muggleborn of the new first years, and he was astounded with the enchanted ceiling and the appearing food. The four other boys, called Anthony, Michael, Terry and Stephen; a blond, a black haired, a brunet and another blond respectively, were quite cheery and carried quite a good conversation on their families and hobbies. Naturally the half-blood and purebloods were mostly interested in Quidditch which seemed to be the only serious sport that the British Wizarding population cared about.

Both he and Kevin, and Hermione, were pretty much completely in the dark about the sport so the others wasted no time in trying to explain it. Mateo listened in and learned quite a lot about the sport, although everything was garbled as often two boys tried to speak at once to explain the same rule or object. The hectic explanations carried on until someone spoke over them, and the four fell silent in deference of the older student.

"So, Banner, are you the Hulk's son?" a third year asked from further up the table.

"I'm the son of _Bruce Banner_ , who happens to have the Hulk as an alter ego, yes," Mateo emphasised to clear up the point.

"Then how are you here rather than in America?" the same person asked.

"I'm actually adopted, my parents were killed in a car crash when I was six and I was living rough when he found me, and I decided to travel with him to India. He didn't officially adopt me until this summer, so I was probably still registered at Hogwarts as I was technically still Mateo Smith living rough in England. I got my letter and we did some research and decided that I should come here, as nowhere else holds the same reputation," Mateo repeated the well-rehearsed explanation easily.

"What were their names?" a female student asked, who was probably a sixth year.

"Don and Katheryn Smith. My ancestors had a thing for odd names, as you can tell," Mateo smiled depreciatingly.

"So what is Tony Stark really like?"

"What's it like in the Avengers Tower?"

"What is it like being face to face with the Hulk?"

The questions came thick and fast and Mateo tried to answer them honestly and succinctly without sounding rude. He ended up spending the entire meal talking and grabbing bites of food whilst someone asked him a question. Eventually when most people were nearly finished eating and Mateo still had half a full plate someone took pity on him and hinted that it might be nice to let the first year have some space. Mateo flashed the oriental girl a grateful grin, and hurriedly ate what he had left.

Whilst dessert was consumed Mateo did a good job of sinking into the background while everyone else chatted around him. He took the time to glance around the room at the other students at other tables. There were a few people looking at him in interest, but most were happily chatting to old and new friends. Neville happened to be looking at him at the same time as Mateo looked over, and he waved over to the timid and rather lonely looking boy. Neville gave a small smile in return and Mateo hoped that the Sorting Hat had been right in its assurance that it could arrange for Gryffindor and Ravenclaw to be taught together. As far as he had been able to see during the meal no one had made the effort to talk to Neville, which made the newly assigned Ravenclaw want to try harder to be Neville's friend.

As he looked up at the teachers Mateo was glad to see that Dumbledore was not staring at him, and he seemed to be deeply engrossed in a conversation with McGonagall. Some of the teachers looked rather like the stereotypical image of magic users, in that they had long mad hair and odd robes. Although in comparison to Dumbledore's bright orange robes everyone looked practically conservatively dressed. Mateo noticed the familiar looking black haired man happened to be glancing at him so Mateo respectfully nodded his head at him and carried on looking around. Hagrid had an absolute mound of food on his plate, which probably would rival what Bruce would eat after the Other Guy had had a run around. A short man sitting on many cushions seemed to be looking eagerly at him, which made Mateo wary.

Once all the food disappeared Mateo expected them to be able to leave straight away. However the headmaster stood up once more and set about giving out some notices for the year. Mateo was not amused or reassured by the man's seemingly comically delivered warning about the third floor corridor, but the lack of a smile on Dumbledore's face showed it wasn't a joke. But then the solemnity was broken and soon everyone was shuffling towards their dormitories, either through muscle memory or being led by Prefects. The Ravenclaw prefects had decided to wait for the hall and corridors to clear a bit before they headed off to their tower.

"Mister Banner, a word if you will?" the diminutive teacher said from behind the huddled first years. He had managed to leave the staff table and get to the gaggle of new students in less than a minute which Mateo found quite impressive.

"Certainly Professor…?" Mateo said hesitantly.

"I'm Professor Flitwick, I teach Charms and I am also the Ravenclaw Head of House," Flitwick explained as he motioned for everyone else to head on without them.

"Ah sorry, I didn't know," Mateo said. He studied the small teacher and decided that he must have had an ancestor that was of the race that ran the Gringotts bank. However he seemed much more refined and human in looks and nature than his relatives, apart from his tiny stature.

"I overheard from Hagrid of your feat on the way to the lake. Am I right in believing that you cast a Lumos perfectly?" Flitwick asked.

"Yes I did Professor; the lack of light was becoming dangerous to the less agile amongst us. I realise we are not supposed to practice magic outside of classes, sorry," Mateo said meekly.

Flitwick looked at the child who had started to shuffle uncomfortably and had seemingly unconsciously started to clasp his hands nervously. It was a great contrast to the confident act put on as the boy had ascended the stairs to the Sorting Hat. Before Mateo had looked almost overly cocky in his demeanour, but this slightly shy persona seemed to suit the child better than the previous one.

"School had not even started at that point, it would be unfair to deduct points or assign a detention when you were not yet an official part of the school," Flitwick said reassuringly.

"Thank you Professor," Mateo said gladly.

"Now I should guide you to your dormitory," Flitwick motioned for them to head out of the Great Hall.

Mateo allowed the short teacher to walk first and to set the pace through the corridors and then respectfully matched it. The hallways were amazing, and the teacher seemed to realise the impact they had and refrained from talking for a while.

"So, I am curious to know more about you. For a Muggleborn to cause such a stir amongst the houses is unheard of," Flitwick started.

"In the muggle world there are a group of people called the Avengers, they are sort of world known for stopping an invasion and so are kind of famous," Mateo understated with deliberate vagueness. He really didn't want to get into another long discussion tonight, he was tired from the day's emotions and it was causing his brain to feel fuzzy.

"It's unsurprising then that half the hall seemed desperate for you to join their house," the Professor said in realisation.

"Well the Hat did take a while mulling over where to put me, but Ravenclaw won out obviously," he smiled.

"It seems like you are well placed. Have you studied much since buying your school equipment?"

"I may have flicked through the books for the year, my godfather Tony Stark raced me to finish them. Although he can't perform the practical side of magic he's already memorised all the theory of my year already," Mateo revealed.

"But you can only have had your books for six weeks, two months at the most," Flitwick said in amazement.

"He is a genius, it takes him little time to get his head around any new topic when he needs to. If he is suitably motivated you cannot stop him from devouring the available knowledge, which is how he learnt everything known on thermonuclear physics in one night. He ended up almost driving everyone crazy until Dad and I read everything he had covered so we could discuss the logistics behind each spell and theory," the new Ravenclaw laughed at the memory.

"So which subject grabs your attention most?" Flitwick asked.

"I think Transfiguration is pretty amazing from the laws and theory involved. However I think I want to be a healer in the future so Charms would be what I would put most effort into," Mateo revealed.

"Well you already show an aptitude for spellwork, it will be interesting to watch your progress through the year," the Professor said as they reached the top of a staircase to find a doorway with an eagle doorknocker.

"To gain entry you must answer the riddle. It changes every time unlike the other Houses who rely on one password for a term," Flitwick explained.

" _Who makes it, has no need of it. Who buys it, has no use for it. Who uses it can neither see nor feel it._ _What is it?"_ the knocker asked.

"Hmm, a Coffin?" Mateo asked.

" _Welcome little Raven,"_ the knocker greeted him and the door swung open.

"The door to the dormitories is located by the statue of Rowena, you will share rooms with your year mates, and each door has the number of the year inside. Your things will be by your bed. Now I shall see you tomorrow, sleep well."

"Thank you Professor, you too," Mateo gave a small dip of his waist in goodbye.

The room beyond the door was wide and circular in build, with a high ceiling. Pretty much every wall space was covered by bookcases interspersed with large bay windows. Blue and bronze drapes hung by the windows, whilst the carpet was a deep blue and the roof was painted like a starry night sky. A large fireplace provided heat to the room, although the fire in the grate was barely burning this night. Dotted around the room was a mixture of large tables with comfortable looking wooden chairs for working, whilst sofas and reading chairs beckoned students to curl up in them and lose themselves in a book.

Overall the room looked incredibly comfortable and welcoming, a bookworm's paradise and a haven away from the stresses of the corridors below. Although it was impossible to glean much details of the view outside the window Mateo could see the moon glinting off the lake in one direction while lights glimmered from the castle below in another.

A few students were sat around the room holding quiet conversations. One or two nodded in a friendly manner to him as he looked around the room, but none addressed him. It seemed that their natural curiosity was sated, for now at any rate. The son of an Avenger gratefully padded to the doorway that his Head of House had mentioned and gratefully climbed the spiral staircase until he found the right door.

Six beds were placed three on each side of the room, with the door to the common room set opposite one that was open and showed a bathroom beyond. He noticed that while a bedside table was set to the right of each bed, a small bookcase was placed to the left of the bed for people's individual reading tastes. The trunks at the foot of five beds were already open and personal effects had been scattered across the relevant beds and side tables.

"Alright there Mateo? What did the Professor want?" Kevin asked as he noticed the new arrival.

"Professor Flitwick is our head of House, he just wanted to chat about me casting that Lumos before we even got to the school," Mateo replied as he headed to his bed, which was the one to the left of the door.

"Are you in trouble already?" Anthony said disapprovingly.

"No, he was just impressed that I successfully cast the spell. It was partially a warning to not try something alone just yet, and a quick chat about my future plans," Mateo reassured the boy.

Quickly Mateo caught up with his roommates in unpacking, after allowing Garuda out of his cage first of all. Soon his class books were in his personal bookcase, with a few books from the muggle world that he was fond of. On top of the bookcase he placed two photo frames, the one Pepper gave him and another simpler wooden frame showing a photo of just him and Bruce that Tony had taken just after he had revealed their new rooms. He attached the poster to the right of his bed between him and Kevin as a tiny bit of muggle solidarity, and also he didn't really want to try to stick it to the wood of his four poster bed. He hung his cloak from one of the end posts of his bed, and was about to start writing his letter home when he realised everyone else was getting ready for bed. So he abandoned his plan and joined them, and in no time at all everyone was in bed and falling into exhausted sleeps.

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In Albus' office the contemplative silence that usually heralded another promising school year was being interrupted by many voices all raised with the same concerns. Albus was sat rubbing his brow wearily whilst McGonagall ranted.

"'He's safe?' I don't care if he is safe, he should be here getting the education he needs! If those muggles have prevented him from coming to Hogwarts then I am going there right now to fetch him!"

"Are we sure we want him here? He is likely to be as stubborn and egotistical as his father ever was," Snape drawled from his chair by the fire.

McGonagall shot him a glare and carried on. "Really Albus, you should have insisted that he comes here, he needs to gain friends and learn more about his family here rather than stay in isolation. Where is he anyway? He can't be learning whilst living at the Dursley's, that would break too many laws. Plus they hate magic so they would never allow a tutor through their door."

"I'm afraid I'm not allowed to divulge that information, I swore to keep silent on that," Albus said, who was actually not sorry at all that he could not speak.

He could hardly say that Tony had discovered the American version of Diagon Alley and had sent a letter detailing exactly how he could ruin Albus if he revealed any information about Mateo's true identity. Tony had been very thorough in running through exactly how good his lawyers were, and the kinds of cases they had won for him, and how long those who angered Tony Stark were in jail for. Although muggle jails posed no threat to him, Tony seemed to be worse than any Slytherin for knowing how to manipulate people to topple Dumbledore from his position of power. If the man was as good as he boasted then Albus had no doubt that he would be out of the Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards before he could click his fingers.

And even if his lawyers failed to have any success Stark had also made sure to outline the strength of the Avengers. Even Albus wasn't sure he could create a shield quick enough to defend against muggle projectiles from their 'guns', or an arrow from a hidden sniper. And the Hulk looked like it would take a killing curse to halt him, and Dumbledore really didn't want to have to kill Harry's adoptive father. That would not help increase the boy's trust in him at all.

"Unbreakable Vow?" Flitwick questioned, to which Albus just looked favourably at the man, not denying the incorrect assumption.

"He is safe though, and happy?" Pomona asked.

"And he is getting the education he needs?" Filius chipped in.

"He truly is safe and well, and he will get the best education money can buy," Albus sighed.

"So on to more pressing concerns, what are people's thoughts on this year's newest additions?" Snape interrupted, changing the topic quickly to something he would be infinitely more interested in.

"Neville Longbottom is not what I was expecting, it seems Augusta may have smothered the child more than helping him flourish. I think her method of coping with Alice and Frank's attack was not the best for the child," Pomona said sadly.

"However he did end up in my house, so perhaps there is hope for him yet," Minerva replied with a hint of wistfulness in her voice. She had been good friends with Frank and Alice Longbottom and she truly did want to see their son flourish.

"Draco is the spitting image of his father," Filius said neutrally.

"Hopefully he has inherited some of Narcissa's skills, she did have more of a flair for Charms and Astronomy than Lucius," Minerva pointed out, whilst refraining from voicing some other beneficial traits Narcissa could have provided.

"Crabbe and Goyle look exactly how their fathers did at that age too," Pomona observed as well.

"Any of your house you will be watching in Hufflepuff?" Severus asked, annoyed at the scrutiny of his house.

"There doesn't seem to be any shining stars this year, but each one of them are a welcomed addition to the sett," Pomona said happily.

"And we could hardly ignore one of your latest additions after his rather impressive piece of work," Severus muttered towards Filius, almost as if jealous.

"Banner seems to be a bit of a change from the regular muggle born students we get each year. Even for my house he seems to be a bright one," Filius agreed.

"A bit different is a bit of an understatement," Minerva chuckled, "he already performed flawless magic, has apparently gained the attention and respect of half his house, and seems to have already become at odds with Malfoy junior. And did any of you notice that he wears his wand in a hip holster? I haven't seen any do that since…"

The room fell silent for a short while as everyone was caught up in memories of the war that had ended a decade ago, but still was easily brought back to mind through the smallest trigger. Although only Dumbledore and Snape had been on the front lines constantly in the war all present had fought and seen how the Death Eaters dressed. It was not a good comparison for the child to be seen imitating their ways, even if it was just their dress style.

"It is a rather aggressive way of holstering a wand," Filius agreed worriedly.

"But he seemed to have been quite friendly with Neville which could be quite good for both of them. And I doubt that Augusta would stand for their friendship to continue if there was any hint of him being anything but honest," Pomona said in her ever optimistic way.

"I doubt that Banner can siphon off intelligence or skill to help Longbottom if that is what you are thinking," Severus chipped in his two knuts worth.

"No but he seems to be a rather proactive Ravenclaw, perhaps he can encourage Neville out of his shell, and if Mateo needs tempering then perhaps Neville can help with that," Pomona snapped back, reminding them again why her house's animal was a badger.

"At least it seems that Ronald is nothing like his two brothers," Filius cut in.

"We can be grateful for small mercies," Minerva sighed.

"Three of them may lead to the school being torn apart," Albus chuckled.

"I wouldn't want to be you if that had happened," Filius laughed too, looking pointedly at Minerva.

"So how are the preparations going?" the head of Gryffindor changed the subject quickly.

Despite being deliberately vague on what she was talking about everyone present immediately caught on. Albus looked suddenly a lot more sombre than he had five seconds ago. "Almost every obstacle has been set, there is just my contribution to be finalised. I do hope that the students pay attention to the warning I gave earlier."

"Well if they don't I'd bet my year's wages that it'll be the twins that find out first why the corridor is out of bounds," Snape smiled evilly.

"I really do feel that the entrance door should be a lot heavier warded than it is, even the first years can cast a simple _alohomora_ and get in there," Filius raised his concerns for another time.

"If it is too difficult to get in the culprit runs the risk of being caught before they get their comeuppance," Severus protested like he always did when that argument broke out.

"And we need to lure the person that Nicholas is worried about in to the trap," Albus added his opinion in a much milder tone.

"If any student is harmed because of your decision then I won't be responsible for my actions," Filius warned, and it looked like Pomona and Minerva agreed with him.

"It would be beneficial for Ravenclaw and Gryffindor to be taught together this year," their conversation was interrupted from going further by an unexpected source and the five of them looked in confusion at the usually silent Hat.

"What do you mean?" Albus looked at the source of the voice.

"I mean what I said, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor should be taught in the same classes, instead of being apart," the Hat said in exasperation.

"But Ravenclaw has always been with the Hufflepuffs, and the Gryffindors with the Slytherins," Minerva protested.

"And I have told you for the last ten years that my job would be infinitely easier if I didn't have the two houses constantly trying to sabotage each other's work throughout the year. My House is not bothered with antagonising the Hufflepuffs half as much as they are as the Gryffindors," Severus pointed out.

"But you know my Puffs are not so well suited to dealing with the scheming of your house the entire time," Pomona said worriedly.

"Well what about a compromise? Potions and Charms, and Transfiguration and Herbology are taught at the same times. Can we not just swap the houses timetabled together in those classes for the first years and see how it goes? There must be something between the first years in Ravenclaw and Gryffindor for the Hat to insist they are taught together," Filius pointed out.

"That would leave the flying lessons, History of Magic, Astronomy, and Defence Against the Dark Arts where the timetable stays the same. That could work, and if we only roll it out amongst the first years we can say it is an experiment. There is no need to spend the evening trying to rehash the entire school timetable," Albus said thoughtfully.

"I'll get the revised timetables going then," Minerva went over to the cabinet that held all the school relevant documents and started to make changes to be duplicated for all the teachers, and first years.

The five of them spent a few hours discussing why exactly the Sorting Hat had spoken, but they couldn't see a reason why it had acted now to influence the school. The fact that it had insisted upon its suggestion being headed was unheard of, but no amount of questioning or subtle probing would get the Hat to speak further on the issue.


	25. Chapter 25 - Adjusting

**A/N: Erm hello again. So it seems the weekly updates are not going very well either at the moment, sorry! I have to admit that I have been rather more focussed on work recently. My month review is coming up (I can't believe it's been a month!) and I've needed to make a good impression. And being half asleep isn't conducive to convincing my boss to keep me, so I have 5 more months of good behaviour to go!**

 **But on the plus side I managed to teach myself 3D CAD drawing in one day, which my supervisor was dead impressed about. Apparently she still can't do what I was doing as quickly as me and she's been working with the system for two years!**

 **So, sorry I've been lax with the updates, I shall really endeavour to kick myself into gear and be better with updates. Thanks to every new follower/reviewer/favouriter since the last update!**

Chapter Twenty Five – Adjusting

Mateo found himself awake well before anyone else showed signs of waking. Kevin next to him had left his drapes open, probably to either comfort himself that this was all real, or perhaps to not feel so alone whilst being so far from home. The others had slept like Mateo with their drapes shut, so although Mateo couldn't hear movement he wasn't entirely sure if anyone was just reading. Considering the amount of light the drapes shut out from his own bed though, Mateo doubted they would be able to see well enough to read.

The adopted American quietly snuck over to the bathroom to complete his morning ritual and got dressed at a calm pace. A legacy of living with the Dursleys was that he had a few scars on his back from the more brutal beatings Vernon had given him. It had been a concern of his that someone would eventually see them and question him about them, and with shared rooms that could happen quite soon. However if he continued to wake up first then Mateo saw no likely chance of anyone finding out.

It was only as he was putting on his old watch that Mateo realised it had stopped. He hadn't even thought about it but the conflict between magic and muggle power must have killed the battery, and the time it showed suggested that happened when they arrived at the platform at Hogwarts. Before he had time to worry about being constantly late to lessons Mateo remembered the gift that Steve, Clint, and Natasha had given him at their last family meal before he left America. It had been another watch, one with a metal strap with links that could be added or removed to adjust its size. At the time Mateo wasn't sure why they had given him it, his old leather one was still perfectly serviceable. However now he had a sneaking suspicion so he quickly and quietly pulled the box it was kept in out of the top of his trunk. As he suspected, it was still running fine so he quickly slipped it on whilst he sent of a mental thank you to the Avengers for their forethought.

He had no idea what to pack for his first day, so he settled for putting his slim writing box into his bag and leaving it near his bookcase. He assumed that there would be time after breakfast to get his bag before the first class so he refrained from shoving every book into his bag. For the remainder of the wait until breakfast he actually got on with writing the letter he had intended to write the night before. He glossed over his run in with Draco mostly, apart from mentioning they had met again, but described his possible friends and his Head of House, and the sorting process. Even with this all covered Mateo had barely written a page of rather cramped and splodged words, and there was still possibly an hour till breakfast. So he settled for reading the Lord of the Rings books that Clint had bought him. Mateo had never pegged him for an avid reader, and the gift showed there was a lot that they all didn't know about the man.

When the Avengers had learnt that Mateo would be without technology for the duration of term they all arrived at the conclusion independently of each other to buy him books to tide him over. Clint, who secretly rather liked the nickname Tony gave him, had bought him the Tolkien masterpieces, Pepper had found a book on Midgardian Mythology from Norse times, Natasha had given him a couple of books on languages to learn, Steve had gone for old stories he had enjoyed in the 1930s, and Tony had given him a few textbooks on engineering.

Eventually at seven thirty people started stirring from their sleeps. Anthony was quickly up and dressing neatly, while Michael and Terry were having fun playing with their drapes and throwing their pillows at each other. Stephen was watching with an amused look but seemed to be unsure whether they should be doing it or if they should be getting ready. Kevin was the last to wake and was rather quiet and kept to himself.

"Come on! Breakfast should be being served soon and we need to find our way down to the Great Hall still," Anthony took charge as the clock set above their dormitory door ticked closer to eight.

"That won't be a problem, I have quite a good sense of direction and I think I can get us there without too much difficulty," Mateo offered.

"Let's put you to the test then," Stephen said jokingly.

When they reached the common room they met up with Hermione and Padma who had seemingly just arrived there too. Padma was looking slightly relieved to not be alone with Hermione, who was still talking at a rapid pace at people rather than to them.

"So, breakfast time! Hermione, this is Kevin as you know, but I think we are the only three Muggleborns in Ravenclaw this year," Mateo lied.

He managed to wrangle a relatively even four way conversation between them and Padma, and Hermione seemed to calm slightly with the company. They led the way down the corridors and as he promised, Mateo got them all the way to the Great Hall without getting lost once. Thanks to this they were there before the majority of the other years who undoubtedly could leave it later without the worry of getting lost. The Gryffindors were conspicuously low on numbers, and only Neville was at his table to represent the newest recruits to the lion's house.

"Are we allowed to mix tables at breakfast?" Mateo asked.

"There aren't any rules against it as far as I had read, I think most houses stick together though," Hermione said slowly.

"Well that isn't going to last long," Mateo muttered and left the group as they headed to their table.

"Morning Neville! Come with me," Mateo ordered in a friendly tone as soon as he reached the lone Gryffindor.

"Where are we going?" he asked nervously.

"Less than ten metres that-a-way," Mateo jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "I want to catch up with you, and if your housemates arrive any time soon then you can come back here to mingle if you want."

Neville seemed unsure about the idea, so he gave the boy not room to protest. Like Tony often did with his father, Mateo grabbed him gently by the upper arm and tugged him over to the Ravenclaw table.

"Everyone, this is Neville Longbottom. I'm making him an honorary Ravenclaw so he can have breakfast with us as I want to catch up with him, alright?" Mateo pushed Neville down next to Hermione and Kevin before walking around to the far side of the table.

"Morning Mudblood," Draco had arrived whilst Mateo was at the Gryffindor table and decided to start the morning as he had finished the last evening. Careful to avoid being seen to be doing magic, Draco settled for intertwining his legs around Mateo's and caused him to trip over.

The Ravenclaw merely tucked his body in as his foot remained trapped by the Slytherin and managed to execute a rather neat roll that yanked his foot free. He was incredibly grateful at that moment for the lessons Clint and Natasha had insisted he had had on falling correctly to avoid injury. At the time Mateo hadn't been sure four hours of falling over had been necessary, but now he was grateful as he was able to casually turn to face the gobsmacked Slytherin. "Morning to you too Draco, I trust you slept well? If your common room is anything as good as Ravenclaw's then the beds are exquisite."

Draco didn't manage to reply before Mateo had returned to his seat and joined his friends in conversation. The arrival of a few much older Ravenclaw students deterred the snake from acting again and he huffily turned to his own table. Apparently the Gryffindor common room was quite similar to the Ravenclaw's except it was smaller and with more stone, rather like a cave. Mateo commented on it perhaps reflecting the cave that the pride lived in in the _Lion King_ , but only Hermione and Kevin got that reference. Realistically a year ago he would have been in the same boat as the students raised in the Wizarding World, but Tony had made him and any Avenger around sit and have Disney marathons on really slow days.

Over the next half an hour the hall started to fill up dramatically with all the older students, but Neville remained with them and despite being mostly silent he seemed to be enjoying himself. Mateo didn't miss the few odd glances they got from Ravenclaw students realising there was a Gryffindor in their midst, or the ones from Neville's own house. However no one objected so they carried on as if swapping tables was a regular occurrence that every student did at some point.

The sudden arrival of hundreds of owls had Mateo looking up with all the other first years in amazement, and he was happy to see Garuda amongst them. Although it looked like complete chaos above as owls swooped around each other as Mateo watched he saw that each owl was looking for their respective owner or postal recipient. A lot of owls seemed to carry newspapers and magazines, and once they had been relieved of their load they took off straight away. Those that looked to be owned by a student or their family often stayed for attention or food before taking off once more. Stephen, Padma, Terry, Lisa and Michael all had owls too that dropped them post, however Garuda arrived unladen.

"Morning Garuda," Mateo said as the owl landed on his shoulder with a hoot.

"Garuda? Where does that name originate from?" Hermione asked curiously.

"It is the name of the vahana, the mount, of Vishnu. He's one of the gods in the Hindu religion," Padma had to spell out to the other children. "Although Garuda is often depicted as an eagle or human type figure."

"You know I grew up with the Indian culture, it was the first name I thought of that seemed to fit him," Mateo added to Padma's explanation.

Mateo had long ago finished his breakfast but he enjoyed the company at the table. He was slightly disappointed to find that the only drinks on the table were water, milk, or pumpkin juice, so Mateo resolved to ask for his father to send him some of their preferred tea bags and would learn how to boil water.

As he had said the night before, Professor Flitwick wandered up the table handing out timetables fifteen minutes before lessons were due to start. That left them all plenty of time to return to the common room to retrieve their bags and books for the day. Mateo was pleased to see that they were timetabled to share half their lessons with Gryffindor rather than being exclusively with the Hufflepuffs as the upper years were.

Apparently the older students were surprised by the change, so Mateo assumed it was brought about by his conversation with the hat rather than a planned change. As he listened in to a conversation held by some nearby sixth years Mateo learned that the Gryffindor and Slytherin students never got on in lessons so the change was actually a good move. However he wandered why the school carried on teaching those houses together when there was obvious conflict, it couldn't do anything apart from increase tension and hostilities between the two factions.

Whatever the reasons for the timetabling decisions of the past, Mateo was happy that at least someone was working with his best interests at heart in the Wizarding World, even if it was an animated clothing accessory.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

"So what do we think?" Tony asked as he strode into the living room of the communal level.

"What do we think of wh-? Tony what the hell are you wearing?" Clint almost choked on his drink as he saw the billionaire.

"This is what Wizards wear in England, and I'm going undercover so I need to look the part," Tony replied.

He had seemed to have taken a leaf out of Dumbledore's book and was wearing a deep red outfit that had heavy gold stitching on the hems. He honestly wasn't going to go out wearing this, but he was having fun playing with everyone.

"That does not come even close to an undercover outfit, wearing a suit was more incognito than that," Clint gasped as his lungs stopped spasming from the liquid he inhaled.

"Suits stuck out, and robes seem to too," Tony said in feigned frustration.

"Just wear pretty neutral casual clothes and you should fit in pretty well," Hawkeye advised.

"Hmm you're right, I can take a suitcase with other clothing if I need to change," Tony agreed and wandered out in his bright robes.

"I think he's lost it," Natasha had remained silent in shock of the clothing.

"No he's as sane as ever," Clint sighed.

Tony was soon dressed casually and zipped off in his Iron Man suit, heading for an American city instead of London. He had found that a reasonable sized population of magic users was located in Boston and he wanted information. Tony had vowed to help Mateo, and with the information Loki had provided, and Bruce had explained to him, he was determined to get to the bottom of how Mateo seemed to be sharing his body with a sliver of another's soul. The boy had only been gone a week but Tony had an opening in his schedule so he was determined to get moving.

Bruce stumbled out of the lift and headed to the kitchen on the communal floor and bumped into Clint and Natasha. He nodded silently as he headed to the coffee pot.

"Morning Bruce, were you up late last night?" Clint noticed the dark circles under the scientist's eyes.

"I'm not sleeping so great at the moment, and I have ended up working a bit later than usual," Bruce mumbled as he wrapped his hands around the mug of caffeine.

Natasha immediately knew what was causing the man's insomnia and flashed him a quick smile of understanding. "I'm sure he is doing fine, you raised him well and he will make friends quickly. I'm certain that this Dumbledore character won't dare make a move after meeting the three of you."

"I know it is stupid, but I can't help worrying about him. I miss him too," Bruce whispered the last four words.

"Hey, he and you have been together through thick and thin for the last almost five years, and he was the first one to accept the Other Guy, not to mention the most obvious fact that he is your son. Of course it is natural to worry about him and miss him even though logic tells you that you shouldn't. If you weren't worried or lonely then I would be seriously concerned," Clint said. Bruce was almost surprised by the sensitivity demonstrated by the man, but he knew Clint had a soft spot for Mateo.

"Thanks guys," Bruce smiled wearily.

"You're not allowed in the labs today, we need to get out and do something to occupy your mind. There's a go-kart track a few miles north of the city, it isn't the same as driving cars at high speeds but a lot more legal," Clint suggested.

"That sounds like a brilliant idea."

"We'll meet back here in half an hour ready to go," Clint grinned and sped off to change into more appropriate clothing.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Four hours later the three returned laughing and smiling back to the Tower. Clint and Natasha had expected to have to go easy on Bruce as the man had no extreme vehicle training, but after getting used to the vehicles the scientist proved to be a very talented driver. What the two gained in experience and skill, Bruce made up for in surprisingly sneaky tactics, and a better understanding of the mechanics and limitations of an internal combustion engine and small cheap tyres.

They ended up very closely tied in race wins, and the trio unintentionally annoyed some of the regular youths who had been outstripped by their skill. Things had started to look a little tense between the youths and as they didn't want to accidentally unlease the Other Guy the trio left after a three hours. Clint had suggested they grabbed food on the way home too, so it was one in the afternoon by the time they crashed on the sofa.

"Hey isn't that Garuda?" Clint pointed to a brown splodge sitting on the railing of the balcony.

The words had barely left his mouth before Bruce was up and going over to the door to let the bird in. It fluttered over to the elder Banner and allowed him to take the thick letter off his leg before flying over to Clint for attention. Tony had joked about birds of a feather when it became obvious that Clint was one of the owl's favourite humans, after Bruce and Mateo, but Clint had ignored him. The fact that Tony was Augustus' favourite human mean that the archer could easily turn any animal related insults back on the billionaire to shut him up.

"Mateo seems to be doing well, he has made friends and ended up in Ravenclaw," Bruce summarised the letter before passing it over to the two assassins.

"Why am I not surprised?" Clint rolled his eyes but shuffled closer to Natasha so they could read the letter together.

"I'm surprised he tried magic on his own, I thought he was putting off doing that because he was worried about it going wrong?" Natasha asked Bruce.

"He was, but I assume he felt it was worth the risk. He chose quite a simple one anyway, I think they start with harder spells in their first few lessons if the books are anything to go by."

"Well that is completely illogical, why give them hard stuff to begin with when they are still trying to get to grips with the whole concept of making stuff happen by waving a wooden stick?" Natasha rolled her eyes.

"The Wizarding World does not sound entirely logical, so don't waste your time trying to understand them," Bruce advised.

"There is something wrong with your son if he is asking you to send _teabags_ , not anything like alcohol or sweets," Clint laughed as he reached the end of the letter.

"I consider that good parenting, which is why it is a good thing it isn't your child going to school. You probably _would_ be sending them sweets and alcohol," Bruce pointed out.

Natasha laughed at Clint's facial expression as Bruce wandered smugly over to the kitchen.

"I'm sending him something stupid at some point, I need to corrupt that child," Clint muttered.

"If it's anything age inappropriate that is going to get him into serious trouble, and could lead me to need to have 'the talk' with him I swear the Other Guy is going to use you're fleeing figure as target practice!" Bruce said loudly in panic.

"Calm down, I know not to do that," Clint said hurriedly. "…But now I know I have leverage on you."

Bruce groaned and ran a hand through his hair while the assassins laughed at him. To avoid further teasing and blackmail he left the two to their own devices and headed off to his room to write a reply to Mateo.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Soon two weeks had shot past and Mateo was amazed at how easily he had fallen into the routine of school life. Whilst he had been travelling as a child they had never stayed in one place long enough for Bruce to enrol him in a local school, so Mateo had always been taught between patients and in the evenings. As a result the constant cycle of lesson after lesson through the day was difficult to get used to, and was the only thing he was still having trouble with. The longest he had ever had to concentrate on learning before was perhaps an hour in the evening, and now they had at least five hours a day of lessons.

"Have you got some kind of A.D.D.?" Kevin had asked him once when Mateo had ended up twirling his quill in boredom in Charms.

"No, I'm just used to intense bursts of lessons rather than a solid hour covering a topic slowly," Mateo sighed and tried to concentrate.

Although Mateo was worried that he could eventually become bored and restless of living in the same place he soon realised he could never be bored at Hogwarts. Not only were the lessons on the whole very interesting but the building itself constantly fascinated the Ravenclaw. The stairs moved when they felt like it, there were hidden passages, trick doors and stairs, and the paintings constantly moved as they wished. They had memorised the routes to all their classes as quickly as possible so as to not get lost, but Mateo was certain that it could take years to learn every part of the castle.

Something he had trouble with that he wasn't expecting was sticking to one language when writing or in conversation. It seemed to be something to do with the magical world that he found that if he was caught unawares he could end up using decidedly not Latin based languages. Once he had been so deep in thought that when he had addressed Hermione during their study period he had accidentally ended up speaking in Russian. Thankfully the Ravenclaws had laughed about it and they ended up spending ten minutes asking him to say different phrases in the various languages he knew, rather than insulting him about it. But it showed how confused he was at times, so he was rather grateful when Friday rolled around and he only had to last one more day before a break.

Neville had continued to join them for the earlier part of breakfast before returning to his table when the rest of his year turned up, but by the end of the second week he was spending all of the meal with the blue house. Apparently Ron had fallen in with Dean and Seamus, while Neville was mostly ignored due to his more reclusive nature. Mateo wasn't exactly surprised, the boy seemed to only feel that the 'true' Gryffindor students were worth socialising with. In every lesson they had shared in the past fortnight Ron hadn't spoken more than four words to Mateo, preferring to talk to Dean and Seamus. Hermione was point blank ignored the majority of the time, and even when Ron seemed to pay attention to her it was only to roll his eyes at her determination to answer any question posed to them.

It even seemed to have become a bit of a running joke with the lion's house that Neville was getting a sense of grandeur from having his head in the clouds too much with the Ravens. Mateo told him he was free to make his own choices and that he and Hermione at least would continue to be his friends whatever he chose. But Neville endured the teasing of his housemates and continued to have breakfast with them. It didn't take a skilled spy to observe the fact that the Ravenclaws were much more welcoming of the Gryffindor than his own house was.

In the lessons they shared Mateo would sit next to Neville and would try to give him encouragement and advice during the practical parts of the lessons. Neville was surprisingly helpful in giving Mateo tips on using a quill to stop ink splodges ruining his work. Hermione and Kevin had ended up often sitting together, as muggle born students they could find common ground to chat about that meant Hermione wasn't just talking at someone.

However they had yet to experience a lesson in Potions, so they were a little apprehensive when they headed down into the dungeons that morning. Their first lesson of the year had been cancelled with no warning, but there were whispers Snape had been seen near the forbidden corridor. No one had been overly upset by the absence of the professor, thanks to what the other students had said. Everyone in the upper years had horror stories of the formidable Potions Professor about how harshly he marked work, refused to allow talking, and berated the slightest mistakes. Neville, who was already clumsy and nervous enough, was terrified of the thought of this lesson.

When they reached the classroom the door was open and Professor Snape was nowhere to be seen. Ron and his two friends were seated as far back as they could in an inconspicuous corner, whilst the remaining Gryffindors filled the back row and half of the second row. They had found Neville dithering at the door so Mateo grabbed his upper arm and gently dragged him into the second row and plonked down in the middle. Hermione paired off with Kevin and they sat to their right, in front of Ron. By the time the clock struck the hour the desks were filled and everyone was sitting respectfully quietly.

When Snape swept into the room Mateo could almost feel Neville shudder, so he surreptitiously bumped shoulders with him for comfort.

"There will be no foolish wand waving, or silly incantations in this class," the man started without preamble as he stormed to his desk. "As such, I don't expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science of the potion making. However, for those of you who possess the pre-disposition, I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses; I can tell you how to brew glory, bottle fame, and even put a stopper in death. Unless you are so inept that you cannot get the theory into your thick skulls."

Neville cowered slightly as Snape's glare landed on him. However the man ignored him and merely started a roll call. As with a lot of lessons Bruce was second or first to be called, depending on whether Hannah Abbott from Hufflepuff was present, and so he had the entirety of the register to wait for further information. Snape finished the register and then seemed to hesitate slightly almost as if to deviate from his lesson plan.

"I think a quick quiz is in order to determine your knowledge. Banner! What would I get if I added powdered asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Mateo knew exactly what this was the moment the professor called his name. But he kept his cool and answered politely. "I believe they can be mixed, with a few other ingredients, to create the Draught of the Living Death, sir."

"Where would look if I asked you to fetch me a Bezoar?"

"They can be found in the stomach of a goat sir, but everyone should carry one in case of accidents so the nearest one should be amongst us," Mateo tried to cover all bases.

"What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

"Nothing sir, they are the names given to the same plant that grows traditionally in mountainous regions in the northern hemisphere. Some people also call it blue rocket, devil's helmet, and aconite, so it really highlights the need for the use of Linnaean Classification."

"What are its uses?"

Mateo had to think for this one, and answered slowly. "It is most commonly used as a poison both in muggle and wizarding culture, which gave rise to another of its names of 'queen of all poisons', although it is considered an aesthetically pleasing plant so horticulturalists grow it. In traditional Chinese and Hindu medicine it is also used sparingly in various cures, but whether they are actually a viable cure for anything remains to be proven. In potion making it's perhaps most important use is in the Wolfsbane potion that werewolves can take to remain sane during the full moon."

"Perhaps this year will not be a total waste if you are all at the same passable level as Banner," Snape sniffed and turned to write something on the board.

It seemed that Snape's reputation was well founded as he threw them immediately into brewing a potion, without any kind of instruction or introduction. Mateo was unsurprised to not gain any points (apparently he only rewarded his own house) but the lack of explanation of any techniques concerned him.

Neville unpacked his equipment unhappily and started to select everything he needed from the potions kit, while Mateo worked alongside him at the same pace. He noticed Neville constantly checking his work against his own, so Mateo ensured that he had everything carefully set out in order of use and that things were prepped correctly before he even started adding things to the cauldron.

Snape did not help by prowling around the class and releasing snide comments, but Mateo ignored him and focussed on reading the instructions on the board carefully. Neville was not doing badly himself, and it was only when they came to add the porcupine quills that he almost slipped. Luckily Mateo noticed the fire was still burning under the cauldron and grabbed Neville's fist so that he could not release the quills.

"The fire is still going, Nev," Mateo muttered.

"Thanks," Neville said barely loud enough for even Mateo to hear it.

"Two points each from Ravenclaw and Gryffindor for talking," Snape snapped at them.

Mateo held back a sigh and continued his work, and by the end of the class the pair of them were turning in completed potions. Neville's was a bit lumpy and thicker than the perfect one Mateo had produced, but it was certainly not as bad as Ron's which had pretty much solidified in the cauldron.

"Well done there Neville," Mateo said as they reached the entrance hall.

"That man terrifies me, some Gryffindor I am," Neville replied glumly.

"Bravery isn't classed as having no fear Neville. Fear is nature's way of telling you that you are in a position that you need to get out of or react to, like being on the top of a cliff or coming face to face with a lion. But bravery is facing those that instil fear in you and persevering. Professor Snape is an intimidating figure with a matching reputation, I think you are reasonably justified in fearing him. I think we do need to work on your ability to function in fearful situations though, you are a tiny bit like a rabbit caught in the headlights," Mateo smiled.

"How can we change that?"

"I think we need to work on your confidence and teach you meditation techniques," Mateo suggested.

"You know I have no confidence, you can't exactly work on it," Neville muttered.

"We just need to find something you are good at and build on it," Hermione joined the conversation.

"Like what? I'm not good at anything," Neville sighed.

"We'll find something, trust us," Mateo said. "We shall try cooking, drawing, music, writing, climbing… Anything and everything we can think of trying."


	26. Chapter 26 - Flying

**A/N: So an update on time, that is a first in a while! Thanks to all the reviews, favourites and follows since the last time, I might be terrible at replying but I really do appreciate them!**

 **We got the puppy over the weekend, she's a Jack Russell cross Cocker Spaniel that we've called Merida :) She's so small she has to jump onto your lap even if you are sitting on the floor!**

Chapter Twenty Six – Flying

Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were scheduled for their first flying lesson the afternoon after the other two houses had had theirs. The story of Neville's accident had already flown around the school and Mateo had raced up to the hospital wing as soon as he heard it. Neville had been sitting despondently on a bed and Mateo snuck in to sit with him.

"Well at least we know to go easy on you with brooms in the future," Mateo said quietly as he reached the boys bed.

"I'm not getting on a broom again," Neville said firmly.

"Yes you are, we are just going to take it a lot easier next time," Mateo insisted.

"I'll just fall of again," Neville stated with certainty as he stared at his bound arm.

"Well you can sit on mine until you get your confidence," Mateo decided. "Are you alright? How long do you have to have your arm like that?"

"Just until tomorrow evening, Madam Pomfrey fixed it already but I am not allowed to strain it," Neville explained. "And you've never flown, how do you know if you'll be good at it?"

"I love magical healing, it sounds so convenient," Mateo said happily. "And I don't, I'm just going to assume I am until I actually know for certain."

"Draco apparently has my Remembrall," Neville muttered.

"What is that?" Mateo asked.

"It is a glass ball with a gold band, it fills with red smoke if you've forgotten something. Gran sent it to me, and it fell out my pocket as I fell, I'm not sure if he left it on a roof somewhere or if he still has it in on him," the injured child said.

"I'll get that for you then," Mateo said with certainty.

He marched out of the hospital wing down to the Great Hall and was pleased to see his target already there eating lunch. His friends waved to him but he ignored them and strode down the length of the Ravenclaw/Slytherin border until he stood behind Draco.

"Afternoon Draco, I was wondering whether you still had Neville's Remembrall?" Mateo asked politely.

"What is it to you, Mudblood, if I do still have it? Neville is not in your house and none of your concern," Draco drawled.

"Neville is my friend and therefore it is everything to me. Houses should have no relevance when it comes to social interactions as it is merely a different colour of cloth signifying our defining trait," Mateo replied.

"Always the bloody logical Ravenclaw aren't you Mudblood?" Draco huffed.

"Obviously. Now, the Remembrall?"

"I still have it with me," Draco stated.

"Alright," Mateo looked at the boy and then around the hall in consideration. "If I can climb to the eaves of the room then can I have it back?"

"If you do it right now, and if you get to the ceiling, then yes you can," Draco laughed at the seemingly impossible task.

"Thanks," Mateo grinned.

Without further ado he turned and walked the short distance to the end of the table and around to the far side of the Slytherin table. Once he was opposite Draco he smiled again at the boy before turning and running towards the wall. The small burst of speed enabled him to grab the lowest part of the carved eagle and used the wall to push upwards with his legs whilst his hands held him steady.

"Mateo Banner, what do you think you are doing?" Professor McGonagall's voice cut through the chatter in the room like a knife through butter.

"I am fulfilling a bet to get something returned," Mateo explained as he hauled himself up to the claws of the carved eagle.

"Get down this instant, this is no way to settle a problem," McGonagall ordered.

"Unfortunately I have to do this Professor, so if you can let me concentrate for the next five minutes I would much appreciate it," Mateo said in a respectful tone.

"If you don't get down then I shall give you a detention," McGonagall threatened.

"Sorry, but I refuse," Mateo said as he scrabbled over the neck of the eagle.

"Master Banner this is hardly becoming of one of our House," Flitwick said sharply.

"I would have thought this was pretty accurate of our house, sir," Mateo began to explain. "You see I could not report the theft to the staff as Draco could just deny anything he wanted. There were an equal number of Slytherin and Gryffindor students there at the time of the incident so it would be one house against another. You legally cannot search him, nor use legillimency to gain the answer. Veritaserum breaches a whole host of rules too so conventional channels would have failed. Now, I could have stolen it back, but that would make me as guilty as Draco and would take a lot of planning to either break into his dorm or to find a way of stealing it back in the corridors. However doing this is an easy way of regaining the item."

Whilst he had been explaining Mateo had pushed off against the wall and had grasped the stone lip of the eave, before easily pushing himself upwards and using the wooden carving as handholds.

"This breaks hundreds of rules Mr Banner," McGonagall called.

"Actually there are no rules on climbing the interior of the Great Hall, or any part of the building for that matter. The thought probably never crossed the minds of the founders, nor any head teacher since. However I do agree that disobeying your orders is disrespectful and I shall accept punishment for that," Mateo admitted. "Is this high enough Draco?"

The Pureblood was staring in amazement as Mateo stood on the top most joist of the roof, half hidden by the haze of the enchantment on the ceiling. With the eyes of the entire hall on him he could only nod.

"Good!" Mateo grinned down at the furious glare the blond was directing at him.

Returning to ground level took about as much effort as it did to leave it as Mateo had to fight gravity to not fall. However it did not take him long to be back on the eagle carving before jumping back down to ground level. He walked calmly back around to Draco and politely extended a hand to receive Neville's Remembrall. A furious looking Draco rummaged in his pocket and slapped the glass ball into Mateo's hand before turning back to his own table and pointedly ignored Banner.

"Thank you," he smiled at the sulking Pureblood before turning and looking expectantly at the Transfiguration and Charms professors.

"How did you even figure out you could do that?" Flitwick asked curiously

"My honourary uncle has a thing for climbing to high places, he taught me how to gauge distances and angles to scale things. I highly doubt he intended me to get into trouble with the knowledge but he probably won't be too upset that I did."

Flitwick had to smother a smile at the child's enthusiasm even when faced with discipline.

"This is no joking matter, boy," Snape snarled as he approached.

"Sorry sir," Mateo apologised and he unconsciously straightened his spine at the sharp tone. He did not feel it prudent to point out he had made an observation rather than a joke.

"Shouldn't we move this somewhere more private?" Flitwick suggested. He had noticed the child's sudden change in demeanour, and it seemed that something that Snape had said had struck a nerve.

"Why? Banner has proven he is comfortable with a very public display of disobedience," the Potions professor snapped.

At the vehemence in the voice Mateo stepped back a bit in surprise at the man. However, Severus misread the situation. "Get back here boy."

Mateo was not sure what the situation had dissolved into, he only saw the fist shooting for his shoulder. Although Bruce had been very good at helping him get over his survival instincts from the five years he had been with the Dursleys, there were some reactions that he could not avoid. However with his recent intense block of training, he reacted more violently than usual.

As the fist came close to his arm he flinched backwards so violently he almost overbalanced, so he spun a full circle on his heels to compensate. He finished the manoeuvre by automatically clenching his hands into fists and bringing them up into a defensive posture. Clint and Natasha had not said anything about his habit of flinching when a blow was directed at him when they had started training him. Instead they had merely helped him change his habit so that he tried to defend himself when attacked, rather than merely standing and taking the blow. The combination of the sharp tone and sharp unexpected movement had caused a miniature flashback and Mateo had reacted out of fear of being struck by the person he had mistaken as being his uncle.

"Ah, er, sorry about that, it seems my training with my family has been a bit too thorough," Mateo dropped his fists and sunk into a low bow of apology when he realised what he had done.

"Follow me please Mateo," Flitwick said calmly and the boy did not hesitate to do so to get away from the stares coming from all around the hall.

Once in a small antechamber behind the teachers table Flitwick paused and waited for any other teacher to follow him. However, they seemed to have felt that the situation was under control and the two remained alone. It was rare but not uncommon for the teachers to discover unsettling situations like the one they suspected was the case with Mateo Banner, and as such they knew how delicate they had to be with the child in question.

"I have to ask, and I hope you can be honest with me, whether your family has ever abused you?" Filius asked gently once he was sure they wouldn't be disturbed.

"Never sir! My Dad has never done anything to me that could ever be considered abuse. Like I said, some of the Avengers offered to teach me self-defence over the summer and I threw myself into the lessons. It became a game for them to get a reaction out of me, although they never hit me. The combination of the stress of the situation that Professor Snape was creating, coupled with the black clothes and sudden movement caused me to react poorly. Again I'm sorry, and I shall not argue with whatever punishment you decide," Mateo said sincerely.

"And what about how your biological family treated you? I have heard that you lived with them until you were six," Filius pried.

Mateo hesitated and debated whether to tell the truth. He didn't know the man well but Professor Flitwick seemed honourable and that he wouldn't spread anything that Mateo told him. But as soon as Mateo thought about lying he realised he had hesitated too long, and the shrewd professor would know. So he took a deep breath and hoped his trust wasn't going to be misplaced.

"After my parents died the government left me with my aunt and uncle, who were less than pleased to have me around. So I ran away, which was when Bruce found me. He's helping me get over it, but the connotation 'boy' still has bad memories. The training I've had probably hasn't helped the matter as Clint and Natasha focussed on me not being defenceless again, so Professor Snape lunging at me triggered a reaction."

Mateo stood and waited for judgement to be passed, ready to defend Bruce to the death if he needed to. He didn't want to have to have told the truth but having Flitwick on his side might be beneficial in the long run, if the man accepted his story.

Filius stared at the boy who was looking ashamed, worried and determined all at the same time, which was an impressive feat. It was obvious he was completely dedicated to his adoptive father and would fiercely fight any negative comments made about the man. He also seemed like he was quite content to put the past behind him as it held little sway over him anymore, beyond accidental triggers. So the Charms teacher decided how best to act and came to the conclusion that he would take the same stance as the child.

"It seems like your father and his friends have tried to provide a wide learning base for you. As you said, I cannot fault your logic in the reasoning behind your stunt, nor is it against the school rules to climb the building. However it was rather reckless of you and you did disobey Professor McGonagall. I think a week of detentions will suffice as a lesson. Seven o'clock at my classroom on Monday. And perhaps in that time we can discuss your control and see whether I should be concerned with your magic casting," Flitwick finished with a smile, completely ignoring what the child obviously wanted to put behind him.

Mateo got the feeling that these 'detentions' would not be as bad as those that Professor Snape was known to set.

"I shall be there sir," Mateo accepted.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

The afternoon flying lesson was surprisingly less enjoyable than Mateo was expecting. After flying with Thor by hammer-power, and having once been given a slow tour of the skies around the tower on Tony's back, only being allowed to hover a few metres from the ground was incredibly frustrating.

By the end of the lesson they were allowed ten metres from the ground, and Mateo's frustration was slightly mollified by the extra height. There was no extreme zipping around, but they could fly in circles and bob and weave as they wished. Hermione and Kevin were slightly more nervous that he was, but they had had no experience with heights and flying like he had. It also helped that Mateo felt that this was like a second nature to him, which was surprising as he hadn't been on a broom before.

Mateo's concentration was broken as a Hufflepuff accidentally was blown into his path by a sudden gust of wind. In a split second decision, Mateo rolled upside down and continued forward until he was past the girl and then righted himself.

"Nice move Mateo!" Stephen shouted across the group.

Mateo wasn't listening though as he realised the glass Remembrall had slipped from his pocket and was tumbling to the hard path ten metres below. If his wand holster hadn't been charmed to stop it moving without his will then he would undoubtedly have been seeing that fall to earth too. Without thinking about his actions Mateo quickly pushed the broom into a dive and twirled until he was facing the right direction to chase the ball. He was pushed the broom so that he was plummeting towards the ground at the fastest speed the broom could handle. He managed to catch the ball and pull out of the vertical dive in time to avoid slamming into the ground. He did almost collide with Hermione, who was still hesitating near the ground, but he executed the broomstick version of an emergency stop and pulled up next to her. Instead of a head on collision he merely nudged sides with her as they pulled level, and he gave her a rather exhilarated smile of triumph.

Madam Hooch however was less happy with his actions and berated him soundly before announcing that he had to sit on the floor next to her for the rest of the lesson as punishment. At the end of the lesson everyone was dismissed and were chattering happily about the hour off they had before dinner, whilst Mateo was asked to help put all the broomsticks back in the shed with Madam Hooch.

"Keep that one out Mateo," the woman called.

"Yes ma'am," Mateo replied and returned to the woman with one broomstick, slightly confused as to why.

"I want to see how much you can do; you seem to have some obvious skill on a broom. So, as long as you do not come too close to the ground, the Forbidden Forest, or the school buildings, you are free to play," Madam Hooch gestured to the air.

"Are you sure?" Mateo almost didn't dare believe that he would have free rein.

"Go ahead," Madam Hooch nodded.

Mateo needed no second urging, he quickly scrabbled onto the broom and kicked off. With the wind ruffling his hair and the ground rapidly disappearing below him Mateo could finally see the enthusiasm the kids from wizarding families had for broomsticks and Quidditch. Without any hesitation Mateo rolled as he shot forward, before pushing into a steep dive. With his body pressed flat to the shaft of the broom he plummeted once more, chuckling madly at the feeling of exhilaration. Whilst still a good fifteen metres from the floor he pulled out and completed a full loop the loop before breaking to a halt again. From his raised viewpoint he could enjoy the grandeur of the whole school bathed in late afternoon sun. He looked down at Madam Hooch who was standing about fifty metres away and grinned joyfully at her, and she smiled back. His battered watch told him that he still had a lot of time left of freedom, so he wrenched the broom around and zipped off upside down, giggling madly, and tested his manoeuvrability and the limitations of the broom.

After a further ten minutes he was exhausted so he slowly and gracefully executed a teardrop stoop before dismounting fluidly in front of the teacher.

"Madam Hooch you have given me the wind, thank you for that opportunity," he beamed at the woman.

"Have you been on a broom before this?" the woman asked as she took the item from the boy in front of her.

"No, I haven't had the pleasure. I saw them being sold in Diagon Alley and I have to admit I couldn't understand the hype. But now I can see why so many of the students rave about flying and Quidditch," Mateo replied.

"You certainly are a natural, it would be a shame if you couldn't join Ravenclaw's Quidditch team.

"I am only a first year, I can't try out. But perhaps next year I'll have a go," Mateo shrugged.

"I shall see you next week Mr Banner," Madam Hooch said farewell to the boy, and watched thoughtfully as he walked alone up to the castle.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

That evening Mateo was joining the rest of the first year Ravenclaws at a large table together as they started on their reasonably small pile of homework. Snape's potion essay on the use of porcupine quills was easily the hardest and longest, so they were going to attempt to figure that out first before the others. They had hardly begun when the door to the common room opened and Flitwick appeared through it.

"Mr Banner, may I have a word?" the part goblin asked.

"Are you in trouble again?" Anthony rolled his eyes.

"I honestly have no idea what I've done this time," Mateo shrugged but did head over to the man.

"I have been in discussion with Madam Hooch," Filius started once they were outside the common room and in reasonable privacy.

Mateo stayed quiet and looked curiously at the man.

"She told me of the test she ran with you today, and the talent you show on a broom. As you said to her, there is a rule that first years cannot attend try-outs for the house teams. However, we feel that for you we can make the exception and allow you on as the reserve seeker. Although this means you might not be participating in an actual match this year you will still receive extra training and will be in a very good position to try out next year. What do you think?" Flitwick asked.

"I would love that!" Mateo said excitedly. "If I'm the reserve seeker and have a potential of flying does that mean my family can come and watch the matches?"

"Certainly, we can arrange for a portkey to be made to get them here and they would be allowed to watch the game," Flitwick assured him.

"Then I will certainly be the reserve seeker, I accept!" Mateo buzzed with excitement. "Can I tell people if they ask?"

"They will find out at the next match, so you certainly may," Filius bid the boy goodnight and left him to regain entry to the common room to celebrate.

 **A/N: OK I seem to be making Mateo to be exceptional at everything, which is kind of unintentional. Yes I wanted him to be above average, that idea worked with my plans. However the awesome flying skills are mostly for my own benefit as I love the idea of flying and Quidditch, I've had quite a few dreams of flying and I would give anything to fly!**


	27. Chapter 27 - Halloween

**A/N: Hello once more folks! Be proud of me, I think this is the third update in three weeks, so I'm keeping to my schedule! The puppy is quite a handful so writing time has been a bit short recently, as you may have noticed from the last chapter. We've called her Merida (from Brave) and she's quite a handful, what with training and playing! However at the moment she is curled up in my lap napping so I can try to get another chapter up quick.**

 **Thanks to all reviews, favourites, and follows that have come through, even the flamers. You make me laugh, so carry on! Meanwhile I'm off to do some pretentious things like look down my nose at some peasants whilst sipping Chianti ;)**

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 **Chapter Twenty Seven – Halloween**

Mateo had, after his stunt in the hall, kept his head down and had not attracted any more attention than absolutely necessary. He continued to work had and excel in lessons, and Professor Flitwick had confided in him that he was probably capable of tackling the second year spells if he had been allowed to be taught with the older students. As that was not possible, the small teacher had taken to giving him extra tuition on Friday evenings, which people were under the impression were still detentions for the Remembrall incident.

With two lots of Quidditch practice each week as well Mateo had few evenings to complete his homework in, but thankfully Hermione and Kevin were prepared to give him hints if he was struggling. In the end Mateo had given up trying to figure out how to write neatly with the quill and started to use the fountain pen Tony had sent him a week ago. The billionaire had also encountered the same frustrations of multiple ink blots and lack of neat handwriting. Some of the Purebloods seemed horrified with the idea but as his handwriting improved he heard no arguments from his professors. If he had used the fountain pen in Potions then Mateo could have imagined Snape would have flipped at him but they rarely wrote anything in the potions lessons so Mateo made do with a quill then.

Being separated from his father and his new extended family had become easier to bear after the first month, mostly thanks to their determination to keep in regular contact. Garuda proved his worth by easily flying between America and Hogwarts, often returning to the Scottish castle with a small box of something or another. The first present had been the tea bags that Mateo had requested, and he gleefully managed to boil his cup of water and sat smugly sipping his tea in triumph.

"You know you could have just asked the House Elves to provide you with a pot of tea," Morag MacDougal had pointed out to him.

"House Elves?" Mateo once again revealed his ignorance of the magical world, and the Pureblood had to explain the beings to him.

Bruce had expressed his exasperation at Mateo's behaviour when the Ravenclaw had dutifully written home to tell his father of his detentions. However, the other Avengers had smuggled a second letter back to him with Bruce's and they all were suitably impressed with the professional and skilled way he had handled the situation. Tony had promised to increase his allowance, and Clint had crowed about corrupting him and how he didn't need to worry about working on that anymore. Mateo assumed there was some deeper reason for that observation, but he enjoyed what he got of the joke.

From the letters that he was sent Mateo could tell that the rest of the Avengers were trying to stem Tony's insatiable appetite for information. His sections were always written in a stilted, disjointed manner, as if someone had been leaning over his shoulder and had stopped him writing reams of questions. So Mateo tried to give good accounts of his friends, lessons, Quidditch practice and private lessons in enough detail that Tony would be satisfied.

When they had learnt that Mateo was on his house's team Tony immediately sent him a Nimbus 2012, the fastest broom to date. Some of his team mates were rather jealous of his gift, so Mateo had taken to allowing the other team members to have a go on it during practice, and had announced that Cho could use his broom during the matches if she wished. The team had been happy with his appointment as reserve seeker anyway, but that announcement cemented him in their good books.

The first Ravenclaw match was not scheduled to be until near the end of November, so Mateo enjoyed watching the Slytherin/Gryffindor match to get some insight into the other team's tactics. Slytherin completely obliterated the Gryffindor team, whose seeker was not very good at all. The match only went on as long as it did because the Slytherin seeker seemed to be willing to draw it out to allow his house to rack up the points. The end result of 250-40 had 3/4s of the stadium groaning and filing out before the Slytherin team had even landed.

"You're team played well there Draco," Mateo said politely as they met on the stairs down to from the seating.

"I'm glad you appreciate quality when you see it, they are going to flatten you in February, Mudblood," Draco smirked.

"We shall see, but from what I've seen the Ravenclaw team has a good chance," Mateo said neutrally.

Malfoy still seemed infuriated by Mateo's refusal to rise to the bait and he stormed off in a huff, Crabbe and Goyle still following him like two extra shadows.

Apart from the unusual and mostly unseen House Elves, House rivalries, and engrained racism within the Wizarding World, Mateo felt that he was starting to get used to life at Hogwarts. However it seemed to enjoy throwing oddities at the Muggleborns for them to learn about, and this time it was Halloween.

The first time that he heard of the large preparations that were going on for the date Mateo was surprised. Each religion and culture often had events to celebrate those who had passed, but none of them celebrated it with carving pumpkins and stuffing themselves silly with sweets. When he had written home Tony had sent back what seemed like an essay on everything they did in America, and descriptions of the films they watched.

"It has become rather commercialised," Hermione explained as she picked at the more healthy options on the tables. "It used to follow the other traditions you've spoken about, but then people decided to use it as an excuse for more celebrating."

"For Wizarding kind it is more than that," Anthony joined in. "Samhain is the time of the year when the veil between the living world and the dead is thinnest. Haven't you felt the sort of spike in power of your magic?"

"It is the end of summer and harvest, the beginning of the darkest months. But it also promises renewal as the Earth slumbers in preparation of spring. For us it holds much more importance than merely another celebration," Lisa Turpin added.

At that moment, the usually quiet and nervous Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the Great Hall. "TROLL! Troll in the dungeons! Thought you ought to know."

After completing his announcement the man fell in a dead faint in the middle of the room. Mateo lost sight of him as the students around him started panicking and screaming. Many jumped to their feet and seemed about to flee the hall, obviously not considering the fact that the troll was out there too. Luckily the headmaster acted to get everyone under control before anyone could leave. It did take the elderly wizard shouting at the top of his lungs for him to get the attention of the entire hall though.

"SILENCE! Prefects, you shall lead your houses calmly to your dormitories. Teachers, follow me to the dungeons," Dumbledore said calmly.

"Something's wrong," Mateo muttered as they joined the line of Ravenclaw students heading up the stairs.

"There's a troll wandering around the castle, keep up Mateo," Terry grinned despite the thrum of tension in the air. The amount of sugar that had been consumed, combined with the crackle of magic in the air, was making the wound up children even more boisterous. It was a dangerous mixture in such a dangerous situation.

"No, there's something more going on here. For example how did a troll wind up all the way up here? Even if it was merrily trundling through the Forbidden Forest, that is a long distance to detour up here to investigate anything. Secondly, trolls might be thick but I seriously doubt it would detour down into the dungeons when there was a hall full of yummy looking humans to go for," Mateo pointed out. It surprised him that no one else seemed to have picked up on that fact.

"That's… actually a very good point," Michael said slowly as the logic filtered through their sugar addled minds.

"Probably the safest point in the school right now is in fact down the dungeons where all the teachers are and, I'd bet my broom on this, no troll," Mateo finished.

"What do we do then?" Padma asked.

"We carry on to the tower, we can't exactly turn around now and go back. We just stay alert and hope that whatever forced the troll into the school is stopped," Mateo said grimly.

Up to this point they had been travelling with the Gryffindor's to their respective common rooms. Everyone ended up bunching together for a short period as the stairs narrowed from the wide main staircase into the smaller ones that split into corridors. The Ravenclaws had been ahead of the Gryffindors most of the time, but now the first years stuck at the back of the house column were wedged in with the fourth year lions. By the time the two houses were separate again, there was one missing from the raven's numbers.

Mateo had been swamped by the rowdy fourth years that were pumped full of sugar and a small amount of adrenaline from the shock. Four boys were arguing who would most likely succeed in taking down a troll, and placing wagers on who the winner. So busy were they in watching their surroundings for the towering beast that they paid no attention to the smaller boy trapped in their midst. If any of them had even registered Mateo's existence they just assumed he was one of their own house mates.

He had attempted to shove his way back through the lions to get to his own house again but he had been unable to get out of the tight wedge. Eventually the house poured through a narrow doorway and entered a quite wide corridor, so Mateo used the sudden space to worm his way out of the crowd and backtracked.

It did not take him long to realise that he was in a section of castle that he had never been in before, and that he was slightly lost. However he roughly could guess where he was and where he needed to get to, so Mateo padded off down another corridor with the hopes of getting to the main staircase. However he must have missed a turning at some point as he ended up in completely the wrong area.

There was nothing of note in the vicinity to catch Mateo's attention, to act as a waypoint that he would recognise. The corridor was completely unremarckable and only seemed to lead to classrooms and some bathrooms. The Ravenclaw had not memorised the locations of all the bathrooms, but he was certain these were for the girls, which meant he could roughly guess where he was. Hermione and some of the other Ravenclaws would occasionally detour down certain corridors before their Charms and Transfiguration lessons. If he was right then he guessed he could be relatively near to those classrooms.

However before he could start to investigate he became aware of an awful stench starting to permeate the air. It was like a mixture of rotting vegetable matter, socks that had been worn solidly for a year by a football player, and the worst public bathroom Mateo had been in.

Without any kind of hesitation Mateo knew exactly what the source of the smell was, and he carefully backed down the corridor to attempt to get away from the troll. However, despite his care in being quiet, he tripped over the hem of his robe and slammed into a suit of armour, causing it to fall to the floor with an ear-splitting crash. Mateo winced more at the sound of the armour falling apart on the floor rather than the pain of limbs and skull connecting with hard steel and then unrelenting floor.

As he had been backing up the sound of slow thumping and a rasping noise had been getting louder. With the echoing clattering of the suit of armour announcing his presence Mateo realised that the pace of the thumping increased in pace. The troll picked up pace and rounded the far corner to see the child sprawled on the floor. It seemed to take the brute a few seconds to register, but then the troll advanced rapidly thanks to its long strides.

"Sookin syn," Mateo swore in Russian and rolled to his feet and backed up quickly.

They had studied trolls in their Defence lessons, fortunately. Quirrell seemed to not be confident enough to trust himself to teach them spells, but their coverage of monsters was quite thorough so far. And from these lessons Mateo knew trolls had skin that was magically resistant, so the only option was to knock the beast out somehow. The only other option was to aim for its eyes and blind it. The latter would likely have a permanent result, whereas being knocked out would only be temporary. The third option was to run and hope to beat it to a teacher who could stop it.

Mateo continued to back up gingerly as he quickly rattled through his spell repertoire. He would only have time to cast one spell, so whatever he used he had to make count. Although he felt he had quite a varied grounding in Transfiguration and Charms, defensive spells were something he didn't know much of. But narrowing down the list to the most effective spell would take time and concentration that Mateo could hardly afford to waste at that moment.

Whilst he dithered for a best solution, his decision was made for him when the troll started to advance rapidly. With no spell readied, Mateo quickly ducked and rolled past the giant beast and ran down the hall in the direction the troll had appeared from. The roar of anger from the troll and intense vibrations caused by its thudding feet had Mateo pushing himself harder to get away. Thankfully he reached a corridor that he recognised and turned left to get down to the entrance hall.

The troll may have had longer strides that took at least four of Mateo's to cover, but Mateo had an edge on speed and manoeuvrability around corners which kept him from being pulverised into the floor or wall by the troll's club. There had been a couple of near misses, and Mateo could feel the sting of cuts where chunks of stone had hit him from a nearby impact of wooden club on wall. Thankfully the training games Steve and Clint had devised had helped him work on his speed and manoeuvrability so he was able to just stay ahead. Although he was ahead he was immensely happy to see the main staircase come into view as he turned the next corner.

He just about managed to make the stairs before the troll lunged with its club again. Despite it missing him, the flagstone flooring around him lurched from the impact and he was left flailing for balance practically at the edge of the first stair.

On the plus side of his predicament, the teachers were just vacating the dungeons, so there would at least be people around to stop the troll and to scrape him off the floor. That was about it in terms of bonuses to this situation, as he was stuck between a flight of stairs and a rampaging troll.

"The troll isn't in the dungeon," he shouted helpfully before taking the safest of the two options.

With a deep breath he kicked off using the lip of the top step and launched himself into space. Using the theory that Coulson had taught him ages ago on the Helicarrier, he curled into a roll when he hit the ground and ended up rolling down the last ten steps to the base of the staircase. He was pretty impressed that he managed to clear over half of the stairs, although he was now facing the troll that was careening down the stairs towards him.

A number of red bolts of energy shot over his head and hit the troll in the chest, eyes and mouth. The beast seemed to slump as if unconscious and then proceed to fall the remaining distance towards Mateo. The threat of being crushed by a club was replaced with being trapped under a falling troll, and Mateo rolled to the side until he hit the side wall and was well out of the way of the collapsing beast.

For a few seconds after the dust settled no one spoke, and Mateo took the time to shakily get to his feet and started brushing the dust off his robes. His actions caught the attention of the assembled adults and Mateo experienced the intense feeling of being a rabbit caught in the headlights. Professor Sprout was looking shocked, as were McGonagall and Flitwick, however they were hiding their emotions slightly better. Professor's Snape and Quirrell were missing, which Mateo was rather grateful but confused about. Professor Dumbledore kept silent and looked at him with a mixture of surprise and triumph.

"Mister Banner, do you care to explain what you are doing running around the school with a troll on your heels?" Professor McGonagall regained her voice first.

"I was trying to get back to my common room, but I became separated from the rest of my house and ended taking a wrong turn. It was as I was trying to get back to the main staircase that I ended up bumping into the troll. Seeing as my offensive spell list is rather lacking I had nothing that would be able to penetrate the troll's skin. So I thought running was the safest option, and that seeing as you were all in the dungeons I may be able to find you all here, Professor," Mateo did as he was asked.

"You're lucky it didn't pulverise you!" she said forcefully, seemingly in a mixture of terror for him and anger.

"I know ma'am but I honestly did not go looking for it, although I wasn't surprised when we bumped into each other outside of the dungeons," Mateo said.

"What makes you say that?" Flitwick breaks in, looking at Mateo curiously.

"I explained to my housemates that the troll getting in just doesn't add up. For starters, the school is a heck of a distance from the forest for it to be attracted by any kind of magical surge or whatever could attract one of this species. Secondly, I'm guessing it is a mountain troll and so it would have lived even further away from the school. Thirdly, if it had wandered in of its own accord then surely the kitchens or the Great Hall would be the first place it would head to? The smell of food or sounds of life would attract it over whatever kind of curiosity these beings can feel towards exploring new areas. I'm no expert in any kind of magical creature, but it doesn't add up to me, Professors," Mateo rattled off.

Mateo awaited a response to his deductions whilst the adults look uneasily at each other. Whilst he was potentially getting into trouble already, he decided to check whether any of his other deductions were correct. "I also assume that amongst all this the suspicion of the troll's unusual behaviour is could also be linked to the forbidden third floor corridor, which is where I think I was close to when I bumped into the big guy. Considering the warning you gave at the beginning of the year, Headmaster, I would assume that if it was worth risking death to enter then there must be something pretty important hidden inside. Perhaps something recently moved from Gringotts?"

Numerous uneasy looks were traded between the four of them, but no one spoke. The encouraging look that Professor Flitwick sent him gave Mateo courage and he continued. Taking it as a confirmation that his deduction that the Gringotts break-in was related Mateo took a breath and carried on.

"Continuing with this hypothetical line of thought, if it is something that needs better protection than what can be given at Gringotts it has to be something very serious. And something on that monumental level must need the Headmaster's permission to be stored here. No offence to any of you, Professors, but I have not heard of any of your work being that important. Which leaves the Headmaster's work, or perhaps that of a very close friend, considering the fact you chose to hide it here rather than at the Ministry or elsewhere. So, something worth risking life and limb for, that needs greater protection than Gringotts and every teacher has likely helped guard, and belongs to a close friend… I don't suppose the Philosopher's Stone is behind that door is it?" Mateo finished.

If possible the silence in the huge room was even more complete than before, as if the professors had ceased to breathe.

"If it wouldn't tip off the rest of the school I would award you one hundred points for your excellent deduction skills, Mr Banner," Flitwick said first.

"Filius!" McGonagall cut in in shock at the man's indirect confirmation of the theory.

"Oh come on Minerva, if he is smart enough to figure that all out then he's going to be able to tell that we are lying to him," Flitwick snapped back.

Professor McGonagall looked slightly annoyed but acquiesced to the Ravenclaw's logic.

"You realise that you cannot breathe a word of this to anyone?" Flitwick said to Mateo.

"Certainly sir, it is definitely not something that needs to be spread around the school," Mateo agreed.

"Perhaps a vow would be better than merely trusting Mateo's integrity? Something of this magnitude is too precious to risk being spread through a careless slip of the tongue?" Albus suggested in apparent concern.

"If that is what it takes then I shall submit to some kind of vow. But you shall not come anywhere near me with a wand, sir," Mateo said to the professor.

"I hardly think that is necessary," Professor Sprout said firmly and the other two teachers nodded in agreement.

"Now, I think I should escort you to the common room where the feasts are continuing. And I think twenty points for impressive deduction skills," Flitwick said.

"Ten points as well for bravery and skill," Minerva added as the two started to skirt around the troll.

Mateo turned and smiled at the head of Gryffindor gratefully. He did not miss the suspicious looks the two remaining teachers were giving Dumbledore.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

"For someone who was apparently trying to avoid attention, you are doing a terrible job," Kevin said to him.

Mateo merely groaned and the sound was muffled by his pillow. He had arrived back at the common room and had been forced to explain where he had been, which had led to a number of rapid fire questions. Some of the older students had then started pointing out his oversight ("Why didn't you just levitate his club and knock him out?") and advised him on spells he could use in the future.

"You are also being a rather terrible Ravenclaw, you are acting more like a Gryffindor," Stephen said as he changed into his pyjamas.

"Well the Hat did consider me for their house. Apparently I am too logical to really be a Gryffindor. The lion's probably would have stormed through with our small repertoire of spells and ended up being killed."

No one replied to that apart from to hum in agreement.

"If you carry on like this then we are going to have to give you a new name," Terry threatened.

"Thrasos," Michael said randomly.

"Bless you?" Mateo said uncertainly.

"No, he's a Greek spirit. Not a major figure like Zeus or Apollo or whoever, but one of the more numerous random personified concepts. He represents boldness, but it can be taken as brashness, courage, or malevolence, depending on the situation and the interpretation."

"You are a fountain of random snippets of knowledge," Terry obscurely complemented.

"My Dad had a thing for Greek mythology, if I had been naughty and needed punishing he made me write out each figure," Michael shrugged. "Not the worst thing he could get me doing, but now I can't forget them no matter how hard I try."

"It's better than his other nickname," Kevin piped up, and switched the conversation back on track.

"You almost seem to like the Mudblood name though," Anthony pointed out.

"Not particularly but it works in annoying Draco. It's just a name, and it means the Slytherins have no power over me," Mateo sighed as he rolled over.

"Just don't explain it to your Dad and his friends when they come to watch the Quidditch game," Michael advised. "I don't think a lifetime in Azkaban is worth it, even if it would be amazing to see Malfoy ground into the dirt."

Mateo was not the only one chuckling as they fell asleep that night, but he was the only one with an accurate idea of how the Other Guy would go about pulverising the blonde Slytherin.


	28. Chapter 28 - Quidditch

**A/N: So I'm only just getting this weeks updates in, it's been a hectic week! The puppy is a handful, work has been monotonous, and I swear I need an extra ten hours sleep. Thank God for coffee! I'm also trying to resurrect my other crossover that has been abandoned for almost two years.**

 **But anyway, here is this weeks update. And I shall post next weeks perhaps this evening too while I have the time, I have Cubs, a meeting, and babysitting this week!**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty Eight - Quidditch**

November the 17th dawned and the Ravenclaw's were treated to a rather grey outlook from their tower. Mateo was not overly concerned with the conditions, it would be cold and the ground would be soggy from the last week of rain but there was no wind and very little chance of precipitation. He would prefer it to be warmer, but there was no sun to blind them so at least the cloudy conditions were beneficial in that sense. He had taken to wearing a t-shirt under his shirt and cloak at the end of the last month so the cold held no worry for him.

Typically each team would eat breakfast together before going out to pace the pitch and get psyched in their changing rooms. Despite the fact that Mateo would very likely spend the match on the ground he was feeling as nervous as the rest of the team because this was his first match. He managed to eat enough to pacify Roger Davies, but far too much for his stomach to enjoy.

The walk around the pitch helped him quieten his nerves and settle his stomach, so Mateo was once again at a decent equilibrium by the time he was changed and waiting for the rest of the team to be ready. Grant, the keeper, was surprisingly ready next despite his extra padding and the two of them walked over to the gate to inspect the crowd.

"Hey, is that your Dad and his friends?" Grant pointed to one of the towers across from them.

Mateo's smile was bright enough to rival the sun as he saw the sight. Where the rest of the stands and towers were filled with people dressed in robes and undeniably wizard styled clothing, the indicated tower was occupied by six obvious muggles. Although it was difficult to see much detail from this far away, it looked like each of them was enjoying the sights around them.

Knowing that his family was less than half a kilometre from him sent Mateo's excitement and nerves through the roof and he felt the sudden spike of adrenaline. Sitting through the last minute tactic review and pep talk was a nightmare for him, but five minutes later the team was filing to the gate. They had heard that Wood, the Gryffindor Captain, had a habit of giving long speeches before each match, and everyone was glad that Davies wasn't the same as they didn't have to wait long to kick off.

As a reserve Mateo was not allowed onto the field during the handshake and kick-off so he stood next to Alice by the gate to the changing rooms and waited patiently as the niceties were observed. The teams were soon in the air and play began at the tossing of the quaffle, which Ravenclaw quickly gained control of.

Mateo kept half an eye on the game and half on his Dad. They had exchanged waves at the very start during the handshake, but now everyone seemed to be transfixed by the game. Bruce had reassured his son that Tony had bought a book on the sport and everyone was familiar with the purpose of each ball, the player positions, and the scoring of the game. He had voiced his concern when Tony had revealed how violent the sport could get, but Mateo had quickly explained that Ravenclaw were often seen as the gentlemen of the four houses. Their games rarely got bloody beyond the occasional accident, and even rarer was the case of a player being purposefully fouled.

However it was typical that the first game that his father would see would include an injury. The teams had barely been going for more than five minutes when Madam Hooch blew her whistle for a time out. Mateo had been busy alternating his concentration between the opposing team, looking for the snitch, and watching his family that he had neglected to keep an eye on his own team. He was unprepared for Roger to shout his name and beckon him onto the pitch.

Cho was leaning heavily on Grant as blood poured from her nose. Madam Hooch had her wand lit and was trying to get Cho to follow its path with her eyes.

"It's quite badly broken and she has grade 1 concussion likely, however I do not feel it is severe enough to force her to drop out. I can fix it and Miss Chang can carry on playing if she wishes," Madam Hooch decided.

"Mateo can take a turn, I reckon he can handle this well enough," Cho mumbled from behind a thick wad of tissue which was already mostly red.

"You heard the girl, mount up Mateo," Roger said and clapped the boy on the shoulder.

" _It looks like Ravenclaw is switching players as Chang is too injured to continue. Taking her place is reserve seeker Mateo Banner!"_ Mateo heard a young voice announce from above.

The sounds of cheering was slightly less enthusiastic than at the beginning of the game, but Mateo spotted a number of first years trying to make up for the relatively muted reaction. Some of the Ravenclaws were holding some kind of banner, but Mateo had very little time before play began to go investigate. Whilst Cho was still walking off the pitch the players returned to the starting positions to reset after the disruption, and Mateo purposefully took a slightly curving path up to his point so that he could swing past his family.

"Knock 'em dead Kid!" Clint yelled.

"That's not sporting!" Mateo shouted with a grin.

The whistle was blown once more and Hufflepuff resumed play with the quaffle, although Jeremy quickly stole it from them once more. From his observation whilst at ground level Mateo could tell that Roger was a good captain and strategist. He had accurately predicted the kinds of formations that the 'Puffs would use, and had come up with very effective countermeasures.

The house of badgers had a solid defence that was difficult to crack at times, and they were good at the safer types of moves. However they rarely took chances so Roger was able to put more of their riskier plays into their set which paid off. He had been adamant that if you were to charge one of them head on then they would crack first, and he was right.

Mateo turned his focus on the other seeker and watched him carefully. Cedric Diggory was a fourth year and as such was carrying a lot more weight than Mateo, but he had had a lot more practice at the sport. Roger had warned him that often seekers tailed each other to ensure that even if they couldn't find the snitch they still had a chance when the other did. Thankfully Cedric seemed to not feel that Mateo was worth tailing and was completing his own lazy circles high above the pitch.

A shrill whistle had Mateo looking down, and he spotted a manically waving Clint. Once he had Mateo's attention the archer pointed down to close to the Hufflepuff posts where he had apparently spotted the snitch. Mateo rolled his eyes and shook his head at the man. If he was to win this game he wanted it to be on his terms.

In comparison to the many practices they had had over the past few months, this game was shaping up to be a very slow one for Mateo. Whilst the players below battled furiously for the quaffle, or desperately whacked the bludgers, the two seekers above were still without sight of the small golden ball. Twenty minutes of circling had passed and there had yet to be one decent attempt at chasing the elusive piece.

Mateo was not overly concerned about the lack of sightings of the snitch, he was enjoying the freedom of being far above the ground where the faint wind played with his hair. The goggles he wore helped to pin his slightly long hair back from his face, even if the weather was fair enough to not require them. He thought he had seen Cedric look at his choice in using the goggles with bemusement but Mateo had ignored him. The Hufflepuff players were trying hard, but they were still almost a hundred points down from Ravenclaw's total as Roger tore through the air with Jeremy and Randolph flitting behind him to back him up.

Half an hour into the game and Mateo finally spotted a glimmer of gold on his own. The ball was flitting around the flag above the teacher's tower, surprisingly high up in the pitch. Making sure that he looked like he was lazily shifting position Mateo flew closer to it. As if sensing that it had been spotted the snitch sped off at top speed. Mateo flattened himself to his broom and shot after it, with Cedric following a few seconds and twenty metres behind him.

" _It looks like the seekers have finally had a bit of luck!"_ the boy on the microphone shouted excitedly.

Mateo tore after the snitch as it executed numerous twists in an attempt to lose him. The only time he deviated from the course that the snitch set was when there was a large obstacle in the way, like a tower or a player. He was so intent on following the ball that he didn't realise how low he was flying until the screams of the Gryffindors ahead of him broke his concentration. He was flying low enough that his broom was aimed directly at the face of Ron Weasley.

Through the power of desperation and adrenaline Mateo managed to wrench his broom up slightly so that the twigs on the end would just brush the ginger's head. He slung his legs up and over the top of the broom so that he was planking on the wooden object and managed to skim over the Gryffindors, who wisely ducked to increase the clearance. Once safely past them Mateo slung his legs down and carried on chasing the snitch.

Despite his broom being the fastest on the pitch Mateo was forced to work hard to beat Cedric to the snitch, and after a tense two minute chase he eventually managed get close enough to catch it. After executing a roll Mateo righted himself with the gold ball raised in triumph in his fist.

 _Mateo Banner has caught the snitch!"_ the voice announced, rather redundantly. _"Ravenclaw win! Two hundred and thirty points to forty!"_

The Ravenclaw proceeded to execute a victory lap at top speed, the six original players creating an arrow formation whilst Mateo flew in the middle of the wedge. After their lap they landed next to Cho and Alice, and formally traded handshakes with the other team.

"That was a good chase, I'm going to have to up my game next year," Cedric said warmly as the seekers met.

"I'd say that would be pretty difficult to achieve seeing as you are already a superb player," Mateo complimented.

Once the handshakes were over and formalities observed the team merged into a massive group hug, with Mateo in the middle. By the time they had disengaged the rest of their house had come out onto the field to cheer them and the swarm of students was turning the field to mud. However Mateo ignored anyone else in the crowd as he saw the small huddle of adults at the edge of the pitch. As politely but as forcefully as he could Mateo shoved his way through the hundred Ravenclaws and was soon running across the pitch to the Avengers.

As out of place as the group looked, they were looking at ease with each other and were smiling at the boy as he approached. Mateo registered that they were all in informal clothing, Tony in one of his favourite Black Sabbath t-shirts with a jacket slung over the top. Clint was in black jeans and a black hoodie, whilst Natasha was in similar jeans, but with a light blue t-shirt and leather jacket. Steve was in his customary jeans and thick smart shirt with brown jacket, and Pepper was smartest dressed in more like office wear. But Mateo only had eyes for one man dressed in his customary purple shirt and grey suit.

"Dad!" he shouted as he neared the group.

Shamelessly he flung himself into his dad's arms, thankful that all he held was the snitch as Grant had relieved him of his broom before he tore off.

"Nice going son!" Bruce said proudly as he gratefully cradled the boy in a hug and burrowed his face into his hair.

"Were you intentionally aiming for that ginger kid earlier?" Clint asked once they separated.

"No, however that was a pretty good accident!" Mateo chuckled.

"We should celebrate your win," Tony grinned mischievously.

"Kids aren't allowed alcohol Tony, so your kind of partying is definitely out," Natasha said lightly.

"Unless the students have smuggled Butterbeer in. Thankfully the alcohol percentage in it is so low there is no chance of drunken antics at the party this evening," a voice spoke from behind Mateo.

"Professor Flitwick, may I introduce you to my family: Bruce Banner, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff, and Steve Rogers," Mateo introduced the short man to the assembled group. "Professor Flitwick is my Charms teacher and head of Ravenclaw house. It is thanks to him that I am on the team."

"And it is thanks to him that we were able to get here," Bruce said. "He organised everything for us to be here, from the portkey to walking us in from the gates."

"Well then, thank you Professor," Mateo said happily.

"It is nothing, and you deserve to have your family here to celebrate your win," Professor Flitwick waved it off.

"It is a shame Cho was invalided off, but I'm glad you guys got to see me fly," Mateo said.

"With the kind of play we saw today I can see why Quidditch is a popular sport. The book made it sound rather dull," Tony said. "I take it there's no chance of muggles being able to ride brooms?"

"I'm afraid they only work when they can be powered by someone's magical core," Flitwick explained.

"Well it was worth a shot," Clint looked as disappointed as Tony at the news.

"Anyway, perhaps you would like to take lunch in the Great Hall? It is tradition for the winning team to celebrate in their common room so the Ravenclaw table would be mostly empty," Filius revealed.

"If you want to go celebrate with your house then you don't need to hang around with us," Bruce said nervously.

"Hey, I joined the Quidditch team so that I could see you guys quicker than Christmas. Besides you guys are pretty famous in Hogwarts too because of the number of muggle-raised students, so we could probably gate crash the festivities if we want," Mateo smiled.

The group finally started to wander up from the Quidditch pitch, studiously ignoring the whispering and pointing of the students that had lingered. Mateo barely registered the other students as he happily caught up with the Avengers and laughed along with tales of their exploits around the tower. It seemed that in the two-and-a-bit months that he had been away the team had become even closer than before, and the worst of the conflict between individuals had ceased. Apparently the Other Guy was becoming more reliable as a comrade in arms, and showed signs of being more inclined to think and work as part of a team.

Mateo happily paused at the doors to the Great Hall as the group stopped to gape at the ceiling. He eventually started nudging them to the empty table where he got to enjoy their look of shock as food appeared down the centre of the table. Mateo failed to miss the glare that Tony shot at the headmaster, but then the group ignored everyone else and settled down to eat.

To the other students in the hall the group of adults were completely not what they expected. The Purebloods had based their opinions of the fabled Avengers on whatever rumours they caught from the Muggle-born or Muggle-raised amongst them. The Slytherins were rather limited in their information as a result of their house demographic, and so they were stumped as they surreptitiously watched the group.

The snakes were mainly under the impression that the group was some kind of coalition of unwilling soldiers and master assassins that were walking weapons of war. Those Muggleborns who had watched American TV were under more of an accurate illusion of the team's interactions, but they were still surprised as they too expected a more formal group.

In reality the team acted as they would at any meal at the tower, including all the jokes and games. Dishes were passed around in a seemingly disorganised pattern to those that watched, but in reality the family knew exactly who would want what and wordlessly passed them to the next person in the chain. As a result the majority of the meat platters passed over Mateo and Bruce, except when they were needed to pass on the dish. However both of them were quite amused to learn that the other had started eating a few select meat dishes so they did try a few of the ones on offer at the school. The wide variety of dishes that seemed to never empty meant everyone had something they favoured, and didn't have to worry about sharing overly much.

Clint occasionally stole food off of Natasha's plate, who also did the same from Tony's plate. Tony would retaliate by flicking humbugs into her food, the adults had been just as confused as Mateo had been at his first meal. Pepper's glares did stop their antics occasionally but she was more distracted by the magical tricks around them, like the floating candles and enchanted ceiling.

To the watching students Bruce was the most surprising as he seemed to be the odd one out of the group, apart from Pepper. In comparison to the other Avengers he wasn't muscular or dangerous looking, which confused some of the uneducated students. But the whispers of a supposed monster had meant that more than a few wondered whether this was the man behind the myth. However the other Avengers certainly looked more than capable of holding their own in a fight, even if Tony was slightly less muscly than the others, and the students were wary of them as a result.

Conversation flowed freely and the sound of the chattering adults filled the hall, covering for the lack of conversations in the hall as the children preferred to watch the adults. Said adults did not care overly about the attention seeing as it was similar to that which they received from the public when out and about in New York. Mateo was enjoying the attention not being directed solely at him for once, and that he fitted straight back into the group like he had not been away. The assassins and Steve had quizzed him on his practice, and Clint demanded a retelling of his escapade that led to him climbing to the rafters.

" **Are they always like this?"** Bruce asked in Malayalam as he caught the gaze of another staring child who quickly looked away. Of all the assembled people, Bruce was the one who was still most ill at ease with the public attention.

" **Not so much, but they can be rather unsubtle after something interesting has happened. Like the dare with Malfoy, and the troll,"** Mateo explained.

" **A troll?!"** Bruce asked abruptly, and the harsh words caught the attention of the other adults around them.

" **Ah, I may have forgotten to tell you about that,"** Mateo said hesitantly.

"Did we miss something?" Tony asked as the group paused to look at Bruce's angry and worried face.

"Nothing much, I just need to have a word with my son," Bruce said calmly.

"Perhaps outside might be the best idea," Natasha suggested as she caught the tiny hint of green in the veins of Bruce's eyes.

" **It isn't that bad Dad, a troll got in at Halloween and I accidentally found it. I outran it and the teachers stunned it. That is all that happened,"** Mateo explained hurriedly.

" **I thought you would be safe at this school. Is it normal for a troll to wander around the corridors?"** Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose and attempted to stay calm.

" **No, there is something much more going on at the school than anyone could guess. Well, I guessed but only through trial and error and having the teacher's faces to gauge my accuracy,"** Mateo revealed.

" **I'm going to kill that man,"** Bruce snarled. **"I thought you would be safe here."**

" **Dad it's alright, I'm safe and the other teachers are not so corrupt,"** Mateo said very quickly and desperately.

"Bruce, I really think we should move this outside," Natasha said in warning.

"Dad and I are going, you guys stay here and carry on eating," Mateo said and he tugged Bruce's hand whilst rising himself.

"Is everything alright Master Banner?" Albus said in a concerned tone, his voice carrying sufficiently that everyone heard him.

Mateo winced at the man's idiocy for sticking his nose in. Bruce whirled and glared at the man and let out a loud rumbling growl that echoed in the cavernous room, his eyes flashing emerald while the arteries in his neck pulsed increasingly with a green tinge.

The entire hall ceased moving and talking at the sound and every student looked fearfully at the rather short man. The teachers immediately reached for their wands, certain that the man was dangerous and prepared to act in the defence of the students. To those who had met a troll before, they recognised the growl as being equal in pitch and tone as one of the beasts. Most of the students had never heard the sound before and were worriedly whispering of it sounding more akin to a lion crossed with a bear. Everyone's concern was heightened when the Avengers all stopped their joking and half rose, looking at Mateo's father uncertainly.

"Not here Dad, there are too many innocents to lose control. Come on," Mateo grabbed his Dad's hand and dragged him from the room.

The fresh air hit Mateo and made him realise the season once more. He was glad that he was still in his thick Quidditch robes, but the cold temperature seemed to barely register to Bruce who was still shaking in rage.

"Dad, it's okay," Mateo murmured and wriggled into the man's arms for a hug.

"No it's not, that _man_ is threatening your life with his idiotic games and he has the gall to act like everything is alright with the world?" Bruce growled.

The situation was rapidly spiralling out of control, and Mateo could see that a transformation was very close to occurring unless he found some way of changing that.

"It doesn't matter what that idiot does, I am safe as I have you and there is no one who can overcome that level of protection," Mateo smiled into his father's chest. "Besides, if anything does happen Tony is quite prepared to utterly destroy that man, both his body and his reputation. I don't think even Albus Dumbledore is idiotic enough to test Tony's resolve."

Bruce seemed to relax a bit, and Mateo thought he had achieved his goal. It felt like his father's pulse was slowing, and he relaxed slightly and returned the hug. However as his hand went upwards to ruffle Mateo's hair they encountered something. Mateo froze as he felt his Dad's hand brush over the cut on the back of his head.

"What is that?" Bruce asked in a very sharp voice.

"It's nothing," Mateo said vaguely.

" _Mateo,_ " Bruce growled.

"I may have been hit by a few bits of rock when the troll chased me. It is nothing though, it didn't get me with its club, and the bleeding stopped before the troll was caught," Mateo replied hurriedly.

He knew that the battle was lost as soon as the words left his lips. The way that Bruce dropped his arms and gave Mateo an escape route away from him was quite a major hint. The fact that his eyes snapped shut and the rest of his body tensed was also an even bigger dead giveaway.

"Well this isn't good," Mateo muttered to himself before he turned his attention back to his father. "Dad, don't freak out Dad I'm safe and it didn't hurt at all."

Any further pleas Mateo was going to say were cut off by Bruce sinking to his knees and letting out a noise that was a half groan and a half growl. Mateo went backed a safe distance away from his dad to wait out the transformation, now that he knew it was inevitable. He just hoped that the Other Guy was more in the 'protective' mood than the 'crushing his enemies' mood when the change was over. Mateo had found that the Other Guy would quite happily listen to him, but he really didn't fancy trying to stop him from killing Dumbledore. Especially when he secretly would rather like to see the Hulk make craters in the grass of Hogwart's lawns like he did with Loki.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

The remaining Avengers in the hall had returned to talking amongst themselves, although Minerva noticed they were much more tense and alert than before. None of them looked overly concerned; however there was no denying that they were definitely prepared for something. The only comparison that she could make was to the Order of the Phoenix at meetings in the last Wizarding War, although they were on down time they were prepared to act at a seconds notice.

The something seemed to be a loud and angry roar that rattled through the hall and caused the windows to vibrate in their frames. It had barely been two minutes since Mateo and his father had left the hall, and she was worried about what had happened. Before the sound had fully died away four of the remaining five had leapt to their feet and were sprinting from the hall, in the direction of the roar. The brief glimpse she got of their faces before they were up and running almost surprised her, the cheerfulness that had been there a second before was gone and each of them seemed to be ready for battle. While her four companions sprinted from the room the remaining woman stood and followed at a much more sedate pace carrying a bag that had been inconspicuously carried with them.

"Miss Potts, what is going on?" Flitwick called worriedly as he raced to her side.

"I'm afraid that it seems that Bruce has lost his calm, the others have gone to ensure that no damage comes to the school. I would suggest that everyone stays inside until he calms down again," Pepper explained, her tone matching her business-like pace as she strode to the door.

Every student promptly ignored her advice and hurried to catch up with her to see what the commotion was. As all their charges were charging out the door the professors were forced to also join them outside. Thankfully the sight that greeted them was sufficient to freeze the students on the steps. Five metres from where they stopped were the shredded remains of some shoes and a shirt, but that was not what caught their gaze.

A further ten metres away down the lawn was where a huge green man was pacing angrily around in a large circle. The Avengers had created a wide line between the green giant and the school, not bunched enough to bar his way but close enough that at least one of them could interrupt his progress. They stood with their backs fully to the building and the students, which showed what they felt the biggest threat to them was at that moment. Minerva had noticed that two of their number, the lethal looking woman and the shorter of the two blond men, had seemed uncomfortable showing anyone their back at the meal. Now they were ignoring that feeling o face the greater danger to them, and that worried her.

As she took in the situation McGonagall was surprised to note that the hulking green man was not alone down on the lawn. The small figure of a child could be seen running around in front of the beast and seemed to be trying to reason with it. However from the pacing, constant deep rumbling growl, and clenching fists showed how ineffective the child's efforts were.

Tony, once he saw the group, ran up to them. "Ah you brought the bag, thanks Pepper!"

"Why do you need the bag? We brought it in case he transformed and for afterwards. It's not of any use right now," Pepper asked.

"There is a bit more in there than just clothes for Bruce, I wanted to try some stuff out and now is a good opportunity. Plus Clint never feels safe without his bow," Tony grinned and started rummaging in the bag.

"Mister Stark, what is that?" Professor McGonagall asked as she stared at the green beast.

To her it looked vaguely human, more so than a troll ever did because everything limb was in proportion. However no human was ever ten foot tall and _green_ , even Hagrid looked more normal than the thing pacing the lawn did. Although it wasn't talking its whole demeanour suggested a greater intelligence than other huge humanoids like trolls and giants. The fact that Mateo was trying to reason with it as well was absurd but showed that the Avengers were used to the beast.

"That is the Hulk, more commonly known as Bruce Banner. He has a bit of an anger problem. Don't worry, we have a plan," Tony explained quickly as he pulled a red and gold metal case from the bag.

"Seriously Tony, you brought a suit with you?" Pepper rolled her eyes, ignoring the excited chatter of some students.

It was extremely obvious that the current situation was not a good time for the students to be getting an up close view of the Hulk, and possibly Iron Man if Tony had fixed the incompatibility of electricity and magic. However that didn't seem to deter the student's excitement, and those that knew what was going on were explaining loudly to those who were ignorant.

The Slytherins were not very subtly listening in to the excited explanations going on around them, seeing as they were too proud to ask directly and none of the other houses would talk to them they resorted to what they did best. Even Draco was failing to hide his curiosity as he subtly half hid behind a seventh year.

"I've been making modifications and I need to see if they work, this is just a good chance to try them out without having to cut family time short," Tony pouted.

Before Pepper could reply he dashed back to the line of Avengers, his briefcase tucked under one arm, and a slim black case under the other. As soon as he got close enough he threw the black one to his comrade who easily caught it. Just as carelessly Clint pulled his bow and quiver out of the case before discarding the box. Most Muggleborn students' attention were fixed on Tony who, in an almost careless gesture, dropped his case on the floor and jumped on it, which caused some people to snort amusedly before gasping in amazement. The suitcase buckled, seemingly from his weight, before it rippled and started to curl up his legs and body, and soon he was encased in a gold and red suit. Although the mechanics were very similar to the suit he had used to defeat Vanko the first time, the suit itself was a heavily upgraded version. After apparently examining himself and flexing his hands the suited man suddenly stiffened and started to rise into the air.

The crowd gasped and cheered, the Muggleborns were ecstatic to see Iron Man in action. In comparison the Wizard raised students were shocked to see a Muggle flying in what looked merely like a metal body suit. Even Wizards were rarely able to fly without a broom, so to see a Muggle do it amazed them. However their vocal responses caught the attention of the green behemoth and he snorted angrily.

"That's all we need," Clint shouted to them, although he didn't turn around as he had an arrow nocked and aimed at the Hulk.

Their green comrade had been growling constantly, but the growl turned into a roar as he caught sight of one particular wizard. With the object of his anger now in sight and within crushing distance he started to stomp towards the group of magic users.

The cheers turned into screams as the beast approached, the floor vibrating with his stamping feet. Pepper held her ground, and the teachers drew their wands. Quite a few of the Gryffindors did the same, while some seventh year Slytherin and Hufflepuff students followed a beat behind them. This formed a wall of older people with the intention of blocking the Hulk's progress from the younger students. Clint hesitated in firing his arrow, knowing that would likely start a full on Hulk tantrum, but Steve didn't hesitate. Even without his shield he wasn't unarmed, and he ran forward with his fists clenched with the idea of distracting the Hulk. His plan didn't work and he was sent flying to the left by a careless flick of the Hulk's arm.

The line of Avengers and cluster of armed wizards did nothing to deter the Hulk's progress towards Dumbledore. For a second the situation looked like it could deteriorate into a political nightmare and many could get hurt. It was only when a blue robed boy appeared in front of him that the Hulk halted his relentless stomping up the lawn and focussed on something other than Dumbledore.

"Dad! Stop it right now! I know that you hate the man but crushing him is not the answer! You're supposed to set a good example to me, remember?" Mateo said boldly.

The Hulk stared down at the boy for a few seconds as if contemplating his choices before harrumphing in acceptance. Albus looked rather shocked and almost a bit terrified as the beast glared and rumbled at him from less than five metres away. The Hulk glared at him for a bit longer as if ensuring that the man knew his displeasure but then took a pace back and merely stood there, his chest heaving.

"Good going Big Green," Tony swooped in close to him, the joy and relief evident in his voice.

However before anyone could speak further the Hulk flexed an arm and casually batted at the red and gold figure hovering to his right. Iron Man went sailing backwards, accompanied by the screams of many female students. However his suit was unharmed as the Hulk was merely expressing his frustration rather than intending to cause damage.

"Tag's a good idea!" Clint shouted and ran from the Hulk as Tony righted himself in the suit. "Hulk's it!"

"Fancy giving me a boost? Iron Man can catch me and then I get a head start," Mateo grinned at the green face looming above him.

"TIN MAN CATCH!" Hulk shouted as he carefully scooped up Mateo and launched him.

Every magical person gaped as Mateo went flying through the air at a speed and distance that would cause serious injury when he landed. However Tony in his suit sped after him and easily caught the boy before the pair shot off.

What had been an extremely tense and dangerous situation suddenly dissolved into a massive game as Steve, Clint and Natasha fled downhill after Tony and Mateo whilst the Hulk charged after them. Iron Man dropped Mateo, who was caught by Clint, before circling back and zipping around the Hulk as if teasing him.

"Oi, flying is against the rules! We established this last time!" Clint shouted. "Not all of us can do that!"

"Alright, no higher than three feet wasn't the rule?" Tony called back and promptly dropped in height.

The assembled group on the stairs watched in bemused amazement as the five adults and Mateo chased each other around. Whilst the Hulk had speed and reach, he had to exercise caution when he went to tag anyone so it was a good exercise in restraint for him. Clint, Natasha and Steve had to rely on speed and flexibility to avoid being tagged, and did a good job of darting around. Tony kept low as he was told and zipped around them all, getting caught out when he was pounced on by one of the assassins. Mateo was the one severely outstripped by the others but he put in a good effort, staying well out of reach of some of them for a while. Eventually he gave in from exhaustion and was scooped onto the Hulk's shoulders, where he gripped on tight and could be heard giggling insanely.

Ten minutes passed and the game was still continuing, although everyone was looking decidedly puffed out and ready to drop. The Hulk paused as Mateo patted his shoulder, and nodded at the unheard question before placing Mateo down. Tony shot up the field, which was now looking like a rugby scrum had occurred on it, and retrieved the bag from Pepper.

Two hundred metres away the green mass was shrinking and turning pale while the Avengers created a physical screen from their bodies. Three minutes later they split again and Bruce was once more human sized, dressed, and had an arm slung around Mateo's shoulders. The group wandered back up the field, all looking red faced and giddy from laughing.

"What exactly just happened?" Professor Sprout asked faintly. Pretty much everyone who had been watching the activity was sporting the same baffled and slightly worried looks.

"Mateo was the first to suggest that distracting Bruce was enough to stop some of his changes, and recently the rest of them realised that the tactic worked on the Hulk too. He doesn't have much patience for delicate or calming tasks, but he enjoys tag as that allows him chance to stretch and react. The only other option is to allow him to vent his anger on whatever drew his ire, which seems to be you, Headmaster, for some reason," Pepper replied mildly. "Seeing as the last time the Hulk acted in anger he levelled an entire neighbourhood in Manhattan. So distraction was obviously the safer choice in this instance."

When the group was back at the buildings some of the youths drew away in fear of the unassuming man in the middle of the group. Mateo glared at them but did not speak up, while the others ignored them completely.

"For once it seems to have been useful to lose my shirt during a transformation," Bruce said mildly as he realised the state the others were in.

The other Avengers were rather muddy from slipping over or tackling each other, including Mateo in his once blue robes. Clint was the muddiest as Tony had mostly gone after the archer, and he had either been tackled into the mud or had dove out of the way. Bruce had mud in his hair and smears of it on his hands from where the Other Guy had grabbed the others. Only Tony stood cleanly to one side as the Iron Man suit, now once more in its more inconspicuous form of a brief case, had protected him from the dirt. Mateo noticed this as he traced the stares of the other students, and grinned evilly.

The tension slowly dissipated from the assembled teachers and students as the Avengers chatted as if nothing had happened, although Albus remained wary. Flitwick offered to help the group, and he quickly cast a spell that had the mud vanishing from their bodies. Another flick of his wand later and he had fixed Bruce's old clothes, watch and glasses. Bruce gratefully accepted them back, and then accidentally made eye contact with Albus.

Being within five metres of the man this time round, Albus got a very good view of his eyes flashing green as his lips pulled back in a silent snarl. Thankfully it seemed like the beast was satisfied with only voicing its discontent and Bruce's angry eyes soon faded back to a warm brown. As foolish as the man had been in the past, he was quickly learning the safest way of dealing with the Avengers. So he nodded to the group and beat a hasty retreat to his office.

With the Headmaster out of sight and mind the rest of the trip was enjoyable for everyone. Mateo showed them some of the castle, introduced them to his friends, let them join in the Ravenclaw party for a short while, and caught up completely on the goings on of the team. By the evening he was tired but content as he walked them to the doors of the castle. Flitwick had appeared to guide them back to the gate, and waited patiently as they said their goodbyes.

"Sorry I lost it earlier," Bruce apologised to his son.

"I understand Dad, at least you seem to be having some good influence on the Other Guy like everyone says. Please don't beat yourself up about it," Mateo hugged him.

"We won't let him, don't worry kid," Clint interrupted.

"Especially as it ended up being quite a fun time," Steve smiled.

"I'll see you guys in five weeks then," Mateo stepped back and breathed deeply.

"We will come and pick you up from the station, and we can do some shopping before we fly back," Pepper promised.

Mateo remained in the doorway of the castle watching the group of people heading out with a wistful look on his face. Once the glimmer of Professor Flitwick's lamp was out of sight he sighed and headed inside, determined to join in whatever festivities were still ongoing.

"Ah, here is the man of the hour!" Roger shouted above the chattering going on in the room.

All eyes turned on Mateo and he blushed faintly. Soon everyone was cheering him again as he was pushed towards the rest of the Quidditch team.

"Didn't you guys do enough of this earlier?" Mateo asked, remembering the cheers from the last time they had entered the common room.

"Yeah but this is for just you, before was for the entire team. We thought you deserved it, you went out today not expecting to play and then managed to pull off a pretty spectacular win. We need to work on your awareness of your surroundings, but you are shaping up to be a brilliant player," Roger explained.

"Slytherin and Gryffindor better watch out, they've got some stiff competition this year!" A seventh year shouted from a corner, and the entire common room roared in agreement.

When Mateo finally escaped to his bed later that evening he couldn't help but feel that it was worth coming to Hogwarts simply for days like that one had been.


	29. Chapter 29 - Christmas in New York

**A/N: Hey guys… Sorry for the long delay in this update, I have to admit my enthusiasm for anything has been minimal recently. I've been trying so hard at work, I've been doing better than anyone expected, yet despite doing the work of three my boss still isn't happy with my progress. Apparently still being a newbie (I've not even had the job three months!) isn't an excuse for not knowing how to do something. Yeah I could have asked for help, but when you don't even know the questions you should ask how are you supposed to get help? As it was the only help I received came about through blind luck - I happened to have a panicked conversation with a friend within earshot of another worker who offered to run through what I needed to cover as a project manager. My saviour doesn't even work in my department and was busier than anyone in my office, but he took half an hour out of his own time to help me!**

 **Sorry for the rant, but I hope it explains why I've slipped under the radar recently. And also sorry if this chapter is below par, I'm still kicking my brain in gear. However it has been rather fortuitous in that this chapter is now being released at quite a relevant time (see, I can be optimistic, they had no right to say I'm not!). I hope you guys forgive me for my lapse in posting, and Merry Christmas!**

* * *

 **Chapter Twenty Nine – Christmas in New York**

The last five weeks before Christmas shot by, and Mateo happily flung himself into his work and Quidditch practice. The weather slowly got colder and colder, so most classrooms and the Great Hall had fires lit constantly to keep the temperature at a bearable level. Mateo had taken to wearing fingerless gloves as well as the t-shirt under his shirt to try to stave off the cold. Having lived near to the equator mostly for the last five years the cold was unbearable to the boy and he was prepared to do anything to keep warm.

The other boys in his dorm laughed when he started going to such extreme measures, but an unexpected dip in temperature had some of them doing the same. He could see some professors look at his gloved hands oddly, but the way he was often wrapped up tight in his robes probably told them of his discomfort. When in the common room Mateo often would try and get the closest seat to the fire that was available. Sometimes the people sitting directly by it would take pity on him and offer him a seat, and other times he would just give up and lie on the floor directly in front of the grate. Although he felt a little embarrassed by the older student's laughter the immediate heat made up for any imagined humiliation.

"You really don't like the cold, do you?" Terry asked as he walked into the bathroom after Mateo had had a shower.

"What gave you that idea?" Mateo said sarcastically.

"The fact it is as warm as a summers day in there, how did you not boil your skin off standing under water that hot?" Terry laughed.

"Sorry," Mateo sighed, "I've _never_ been anywhere that got this cold before. China was probably the coolest but we were living there during their summer."

"You could just use a warming charm on yourself," Stephen suggested.

"I haven't mastered it yet, but when I do I am going to make myself warm enough to think I was standing in the middle of the Sahara," Mateo said determinedly as the others laughed.

Unfortunately, what with all his other work and training, Mateo did not master the spell before they left for Christmas. Whilst the platform in London was mostly covered with families happily reuniting with their children, there were two adults that broke into fits of laughter. As soon as the billionaire saw that Mateo was swaddled in thick clothing step onto the platform he broke into gales of laughter. Not for the first time did the American's atypical behaviour cause a few more reserved adults look at him with contempt. But the three just ignored everyone else and focussed on each other.

It reassured Mateo to see that his father was similarly well wrapped in multiple layers of thick warm clothing when they got close enough. Underneath his trademark purple shirt Mateo could spot a black thermal T-shirt, as well as Bruce wearing a thick coat and scarf and gloves.

Pretty much everyone else on the platform were comfortable in winter coats and scarves, but not to the extremes as the father and son. Mateo glared as Kevin left the train smiling smugly, still only dressed in clothes more suited for the autumn. Tony had added an expensive knee-length black coat to his usual attire, but other than that he seemed at ease with the cold conditions like Mateo's friend.

"I hate you Tony," Mateo said to surprise the two adults. "Could you rub it in our faces any more that this weather isn't too bad."

"I was tempted to come in just shorts and a t-shirt, but I thought that was pushing it a bit far," Tony laughed when he realised it was a joke.

"It's hard to believe but it is actually warmer here than at Hogwarts," Mateo realised.

"Considering you've just travelled the length of this country I am not too surprised. Anyway, we should be going, anyone you want to say goodbye to?" Bruce asked.

"Nah I'm good, Hermione and Neville were in the compartment with me so I've already caught everyone I need to," Mateo said with certainty.

"Then we shall be off!" Tony announced happily and started herding the other two to the exit, ignoring the looks of disapproval from other adults heading to the barrier. It seemed that Tony's enthusiastic and almost immature behaviour was also not regarded positively by Wizards either.

Tony had a sleek black car waiting for him, probably the same one they had used in September, but the driver this time was Happy. Tony claimed front seat next to his driver-cum-bodyguard whilst Bruce took a seat next to his son. Mateo put his book bag on the middle seat before he clambered into the back of the car and greeted the driver with familiarity.

"Hello again Happy!" Mateo said.

"It's good to see you again Mateo. I assume we are heading back to the apartment?" Happy asked Tony.

"Yeah, we'll drop off Mateo's things and probably get take-out for dinner," Tony agreed.

"When are we flying back to New York?" Mateo asked.

"Whenever we want, but I thought a couple of days for us to do some shopping without the others pestering us might be useful. Steve had all his Christmas shopping done a month ago, and Pepper has been badgering me to get mine done or she would do it for me," Tony grimaced.

Mateo was glad that he had the chance to buy everyone something, he had heard of magazines that students often ordered presents from but he wanted to do things properly. When it was just his father and him the shopping was done pretty quickly as they only got each other a couple of practical things, and it was pretty easy to guess what they would be.

So the next day, armed with a bulging pouch of galleons that Tony had insisted they took, Mateo and Bruce set about buying frivolous gifts from Diagon Alley. Mateo ended up mostly buying people a mixture of wizarding sweets and odd items that he thought they would enjoy, whilst Bruce went crazy in Flourish and Blotts. The day after they went around Muggle London and picked out any gifts they still needed to buy, while Tony spent the time buying them numerous warm items of clothing as a way of amusing himself as the other two carefully spent ages searching for the right gifts.

They returned to America on the Monday and the three of them with Happy spent a good portion of the flight playing card games, and teaching Mateo some new ones. Mateo chatted about what they had learnt and what they had to cover in the future, and the two adults were content to listen as he excitedly outlined some topics. It was as he started to cover the theory of being an animagus that Tony really became invested in the conversation.

"You can turn into animals?" Tony asked excitedly.

"Only one apparently, it is sort of like a representation of your personality and defining traits. A bit like in _The Golden Compass_ I think when the daemons are a reflectance of your soul. My transfiguration teacher can turn into a cat but I don't know of any of the other teachers who can do it."

"Is it possible to learn how to do that at eleven?" Bruce asked warily.

"I'm not sure, but I can research it anyway," Mateo caught the worried look his dad sent him. "I won't attempt it alone, or at all for a few years if it sounds too dangerous."

"We could look into getting you a tutor if that would help you with your education, you could practice over the summer and get ahead of the others," Tony offered.

"By the sounds of it Mateo is already in the lead in practical magic for his year, I doubt he needs to be any further ahead," Bruce interjected. "Summers are for resting, I don't want him getting burnt out."

"I've had Professor Flitwick giving me some coaching already," Mateo said slowly, not wanting to argue with either adult. "I think it would be most beneficial if I can continue my training with you lot, learn science and engineering. My self defence lessons with Nat, Clint, and Steve are really helpful so I wouldn't mind getting a load more of those."

"Fair enough," Tony shrugged, and both others were surprised that he acquiesced to their decision so easily.

The rest of the flight passed quickly and soon Mateo was happily glued to the windows watching America pass by. New York had changed little in the time he had been missing, only some buildings were almost finished being reconstructed since the Leviathan's and the Hulk had destroyed them had changed. Stark Tower was as it had been when he had left, with just the A remaining on the side, and the billionaire informed him that there were plans to completely renovate the upper levels. However the renovations hadn't started as the blueprints were still being drawn up and would need approval. When the changes were made Tony said it would be the Avenger tower officially, but at the moment the name changed depending on who you talked to. Those that lived in it called it Stark Tower, or simply the Tower, and the public had stuck with calling it the Avenger Tower.

Mateo had only his book bag with him, stuffed with his homework and the few clothes he had wanted to take back with him. Garuda had flown ahead, so he easily carried the few bags of presents he had bought up to his room. Tony had insisted they all met on the communal floor in a few minutes to catch whoever was there as a surprise, so Mateo did not dally in his room. Bruce met him at the lift and the pair travelled up together as instructed.

The sudden explosion of sound and colour when the lift opened on the higher level gave Mateo a fright. The living room and kitchen had been decked out in blue banners and gold streamers, while a huge A0 sheet of paper had been covered with numerous sketches with 'WELCOME HOME!' printed along the top in neat calligraphy. It was obvious that Steve had tried to make the banner interesting with drawings of Hogwarts or the Avengers as a group. However there were a few scrawls where some of the others had attempted to help, and a trail of small cat prints where Augustus had walked over the wet paint. Mateo could tell Steve would have been annoyed at it not being perfect, but Mateo loved it.

The cause of the raucous sound had been a collective greeting repeating the sentiments of the poster, and Mateo was suddenly swamped by every member of the family. Or at least those in residence, it was hard to miss the fact that Thor was still on Asgard. Pepper hugged him first, then Clint ruffled his hair as Natasha hugged him, before Steve grabbed him for a hug.

Copious amounts of food had been bought and prepared, so the welcoming party evolved into a buffet where everyone caught up with the child. Mateo spent pretty much the entire time explaining what he had been learning, and then demonstrating the spells when he had Tony's permission. The fact that the billionaire was the one goading him into doing it helped despite his rules on being careful with magic around electric appliances as Mateo wouldn't feel guilty if something broke.

Thankfully levitation, transfiguration, illuminating, warming, and disarming spells worked fine without causing JARVIS or the television to explode. While three of the avengers and Pepper watched on with amazement as he created flames in his hands, Mateo couldn't not notice the proud look on Bruce's face. Almost harder to ignore was the look of complete concentration on Tony's face as the genius' mind went into overdrive analysing the display in front of him.

Before Mateo even had time to put his wand away in his holster, now hidden up his sleeve rather than at his hip, Stark started to fire questions and hypotheses at the Hogwarts student. It seemed that Tony knew as much of the theory as Mateo did and the wizard decided to test the billionaire by picking his brain about some of the theories that he was not entirely sure about. Surprisingly Tony was able to shed some light on what Mateo was confused on, as apparently the answers to his questions were covered in the third year material.

The week before Christmas was spent redecorating the house from the welcoming banners to more festive ones, and trying to stop Tony from completely destroying the Christmas tree through using gadgets he designed to 'help' with the decorating process. The long suffering look on Pepper's face told them all of this being an annual occurrence, but apparently they had at least been successful in stopping him from actually repainting the walls red, gold, and green, which apparently he had done a few years ago.

Christmas Eve was filled with stuffing presents under the tree and singing carols. Tony and Clint had made some eggnog from scratch and had become rather inebriated on the drink, resulting in some rather off-key singing. Tony had been banned from the labs for at least the fortnight around Christmas unless it was necessary, and thankfully he was putting effort into festivities rather than sulking. Mateo laughed along with his father at their antics, which culminated in them trying to stick wrapping decorations on Steve's shield and Pepper's head. Tony had almost attempted to do the same to Natasha's head, but her death glare soon dissuaded him and she remained harassment free as she sat by Pepper.

Steve, Bruce, Pepper, and Natasha had teamed together to prepare the food for the following day and flitted between the kitchen and the lounge. Considering they had a super soldier in their party they ended up preparing two of the largest turkeys Mateo had ever seen, and apparently they needed cooking for almost a day on a very low heat according to the recipe Steve used. Bruce had made a vegetarian flan for the two of them using a number of vegetables that Mateo had not had before, such as artichoke and olives.

It was a shock for pretty much everyone in the tower to be awoken by JARVIS playing _'Baby it's Cold Outside'_ and for _snow_ to be falling in their rooms. Upon closer inspection it was not real snow but rather very fine polystyrene balls, and they were being filtered out of the air vents. Only two people were not caught by the clever trick, as Mateo and Bruce were up an hour before everyone else to fulfil their tradition.

This year was slightly more difficult as they were cooking for five times the number of people, but Mateo happily set to making a massive batch of croissant dough. Thanks to Tony designing each floor to be separate flats should the occupier want solitude they had their kitchen with which to make the pastries, as the ovens on the communal floor were stuffed with meat and vegetables.

They had just got everything cooked and shifted up to the communal floor and had the table set when the prank/surprise snow had begun to fall. Even through the floor they could hear loud voices as people were woken earlier than they planned.

"JARVIS, what's going on?" Mateo asked curiously.

" _It seems someone altered the air conditioning system to be activated three minutes ago to project fake snow into the bedrooms. Someone also installed a programme to use my audio systems to play music, Master Banner,"_ the AI summed up neatly.

"Well that has to be Tony or you," Mateo accused his father.

"I was responsible for the music, although I was going to get JARVIS to play _'Once in Royal David's City'_ rather than this," Bruce gestured to the music coming from the speakers. "We needed some way of getting everyone to breakfast."

"Well this may also work," Mateo shrugged. "JARVIS? Can you tell everyone that there is breakfast ready in the kitchen? And please stress that the snow was not our idea."

" _Certainly Master Banner."_

It only took a further three minutes for the first people to appear as Natasha stalked into the room with a rather delicate looking Clint following on. They both had white pieces of polystyrene stuck in their hair that occasionally were dislodged. Bruce wisely didn't mention anything and merely gestured to the mound of croissants and condiments. It seemed Pepper was not entirely surprised by the wake-up call when she arrived, and Tony was looking slightly delicate but pleased as he slunk in behind Pepper.

"Our rooms better be clear by this evening, Stark," Natasha threatened mildly. Mateo wasn't entirely sure how she managed to make a threat sound mild, but if anyone could then it would be the Russian born assassin.

"Now now, no death threats at Christmas," Tony waved his hands. "But yes they will be clear. How did you know it was me?"

"Only you could concoct such a scheme, and be able to write the coding needed to pull it off," Natasha pointed out.

"Someone had already done that for me, I just added the snow," Tony said smugly and stared purposefully at the other genius.

"I chose a less jarring wake-up call than that," Bruce argued.

"You didn't even need to be so dedicated to write the new code, JARVIS likes nice pranks like that," Tony grinned at their surprised looks. "I did programme him with a sense of humour, just don't ask him to spread fake snow around the place, that is probably where his parameters draw a line and you need to step in with new coding."

"Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone!" Mateo cut short the argument.

"Yes, indeed," Clint raised his mug of coffee in a toast, although his voice was at a much softer pitch.

"So what prompted all this? We had breakfast items already," Pepper asked.

"It was a tradition me and Dad had from travelling so we decided to continue it. I baked bread the first Christmas we shared together and then when I learnt to make Croissants off of a baker in China we ended up having them for breakfast each year," Mateo explained.

"Well you didn't have to include us, but we are very grateful that you did," Steve said and numerous murmurs of agreement were made around the table.

The food went down with many complements from the group before Tony and Steve loaded the dishwasher, after the soldier had glared at the billionaire until he gave in, and they all drifted to the lounge. Clint, who seemed to already be over the worst of his hangover, was happily digging through the mound of presents around the tree and was sorting them. Well, the sorting was rather violent, and as Mateo watched the archer checked to see whether the item seemed delicate before tossing it into the relevant pile that were starting to appear around the sofas. Pepper and Tony had been placed on the furthest sofa, whilst Mateo, Bruce, and Steve were on the largest middle sofa. Clint and Natasha's own piles were on the sofa nearest the tree.

Mateo received a new watch from Steve, a utility belt from Clint that had numerous non electric gadgets, and a violin from Natasha in reference to one of their conversations before he had left for Hogwarts. His dad had once again been practical and had bought him many sets of thermals to wear at Hogwarts, as well as a watercolour set. Pepper had bought him a pair of gold cufflinks with sapphires set into them, which may have been slightly redundant if Tony hadn't given him a number of suits where the shirts required cufflinks.

"And just so you know, we will be going out and you _will_ be wearing them," Tony said in mock seriousness.

He half dreaded the idea of being forced out to a fancy restaurant in such attire, but Mateo decided that he would endure it if it made Tony happy. The rest of his presents were from his school mates and mostly comprised of sweets or books from his Ravenclaw housemates. Neville had sent him a book on American magical plants which Mateo was very interested to read, along with all the other books he had received.

The gifts he had given to his friends had mostly compromised of either Avengers memorabilia to his muggle raised friends, after he had checked with Bruce and Tony that it wouldn't be too obnoxious. To his Wizard raised friends who wouldn't understand the toys, or wouldn't be able to use them because of magic, he had sent defence books. It was a shared opinion around the Ravenclaw common room that Professor Quirrell's teaching was not up to the same standard as the other teachers.

Tony had seemed to have decided to make the most of the access to the new world by buying everyone a myriad of magical gifts. Mateo was fascinated by his metal dragon statue that, like wizarding photographs, moved around on his palm. Its motion was limited to stretching out its wings, scratching and turning around, but it was still the closest Mateo had ever been to one of the mythical beasts.

By the time everyone had finished opening their presents, Bruce had been the slowest of the group, the food was ready and once set out it threatened to overflow the table that they ate at. Although the island in the kitchen was often more than suitable for their daily needs, today they had to use the almost forgotten dining room next to the kitchen.

Steve, Tony and Clint pretty much ate an entire turkey between themselves and still made impressive tracks into the roasted vegetables too. Mateo chuckled as he and his father delicately picked their way through the goat's cheese flan and roast vegetables whilst the mound of turkey slowly decreased. Everyone was enjoying themselves and conversations flowed easily.

They had just finished their food and had strolled, or crawled in the case of a certain duo, back to the living room when their afternoon was interrupted.

" _Sir I have been asked to alert you to the arrival of a visitor in the lift,"_ JARVIS said cautiously.

"Who would visit on today of all days?" Tony grumbled from his spot on the couch where he was nursing his food baby.

" _I do not detect any threat, sir,"_ JARVIS continued vaguely.

Mateo had a weird feeling that he knew exactly who was about to come through the lift, so he carefully carelessly wandered towards the kitchen under the guise of getting a drink. He knew exactly when the man exited the lift by the conversation suddenly ceasing in the room.

"I didn't think ghosts could register on your scans JARVIS," Tony said in a very flat tone.

" _They do not, sir,"_ JARVIS said in a mild tone.

"Then who has stolen Phil's face?" Clint said dangerously.

"No one has stolen it," Mateo said quietly as he entered the room and stood in front of Phil.

"Mateo?" Bruce said in confusion.

The Avengers had stood to face the supposed threat with Pepper behind them, protected from what may come. Mateo's position in front of the newcomer froze the six from advancing further and attacking, so he took the opportunity.

"This is the real Phil, he didn't die on the Helicarrier," he stated confidently.

"We all saw the blood, heard about his injuries. There was no way anyone could survive that," Bruce protested.

"There's no normal way anyone could save that, but I may have had an influence on the normal running of things," Mateo shrugged. He was silently glad that Phil was wisely staying out of the argument until they had made a decision, the agent obviously knew any input would just cloud the matter.

"You saved him?" Steve asked in a rather hopeful tone.

"I don't know how I did it, but I somehow managed to sort of hold his chest in stasis until the medics got there and could stem the bleeding."

"Fury announced his death…" Clint said slowly, but it was unclear whether he was having difficulty figuring out which hurt more, the betrayal or his stomach.

"He needed you all to listen and to work together. Loki may have been playing with your minds but can you honestly say things would have worked out so well without this subterfuge?" Mateo asked.

"Of course," Tony scoffed.

Mateo merely glared at him and raised an eyebrow.

"Bruce, your son is glaring at me," Tony spluttered.

"It is one thing I have learnt to do well from two of my professors at Hogwarts," Mateo stated.

"Alright Fury might have made the right call," Tony admitted grudgingly.

"So, now that's sorted, Merry Christmas Phil," Mateo turned and hugged the man.

"Thank you Mateo, for everything," Phil said back heartily.

"Sorry I didn't get you a gift," Mateo was genuinely remorseful, he enjoyed giving to others.

"I'm alive because of you, I think that is the greatest gift I could have," Phil hugged the youth right back.

Now that he was paying attention to the person he had been protecting, Mateo could see that Phil was a lot paler and thinner than he remembered, and his suit hung looser on his frame than it had before. There wasn't any evidence of pain in the man's face, Mateo was glad to see, so the huge wound Loki had inflicted must have fully healed. Mateo's dad must have also seen the contrast in appearances from before and was the first to come over.

"Fury may not have been too far from the truth, there was probably every chance that Phil would not have survived," he commented to the others. "It's good to see you again."

Phil merely smiled and shook the man's hand, and the three turned to look at the others. Clint and Natasha came forward next, if a little warily, but once they were certain Phil was Phil they happily hugged the man, to Tony's surprise. Tony was the last Avenger to come over and rather awkwardly shook the man's hand in welcome.

Soon the frosty air dissipated although there seemed to still be an air of betrayal and bitterness that they had grieved for the man, but that seemed to be more directed at Fury rather than Coulson. Mateo ignored all that and sat Phil down in the middle of a sofa, grabbed him a drink and settled next to him for the movie. Bruce joined Mateo on his left while Clint and Natasha grabbed the sofa to Phil's right. Tony insisted that they watched a few traditional films that were often watched on that day, so by popular consensus ' _It's a Wonderful Life'_ and _'Muppets Christmas Carol'_ were played first.

Mateo had heard that Clint had first trained at a circus, but to hear him easily sing along in a clear voice to the songs in both films was a surprise. Natasha just smiled indulgently as he tried to nudge her into joining in, whilst Phil sighed as if this had been a common occurrence. The first film had been released after Steve had been frozen but it was very similar to what he had grown up with, so he was enjoying the little links to his past. Pepper seemed to thoroughly enjoy the Muppet movie as if she had seen it many times before.

For dinner they made sandwiches out of the leftovers and ended up switching to board games for the evening entertainment. Steve, Natasha, Clint, and Phil were engaged in a game of _Risk_ whilst Bruce, Tony, and Pepper played _Scrabble_. Mateo happily leant against his dad's leg and lazily watched the word game progress, content to merely observe the events going on around him. The contented feeling seemed to be shared across the room, and people only reluctantly started drifting back to their rooms late at night when they couldn't keep their eyes open.


	30. Chapter 30 - Peacocks

**A/N: Two chapters in a week, be proud people! To be honest this is more of a filler chapter, something I wrote whilst feeling that the characters needed more exploring/screen time. So anyway, Merry Christmas, don't judge the chapter too harshly, and I will see you all again soon (Probably before the new year)!**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirty – Peacocks**

"I look ridiculous," Mateo huffed as he wriggled uncomfortably in his suit.

In reality the suit was very comfortable and the tailors who had made it had done an excellent job in making it as child-friendly as possible. The material was soft and it had been cut slightly looser than his size so that he could move freely and swing his arms in any direction. He had seen some business men in New York who wore suits that seemed more like straight jackets. They looked like they had been crammed into the fabric and could barely move their arms enough to swing them as they walked. Mateo had been incredibly grateful when he put the clothes on and realised that it was no tighter on him than his school clothes.

The suit he had chosen to wear that evening was a very deep blue that looked black except for when he stood in the right light, with a plain white shirt. Thankfully his dad had reassured him that being a child meant he was exempt from the obligatory bowtie so he happily left his top button undone. He made sure he was wearing the comfortable leather watch that Steve had bought him, and the gold and sapphire cufflinks that had been Pepper's present, before tackling his hair.

Whilst he was home he seized the opportunity to have a hair cut and it was back to his more common length. Although his hair was quite long by the standards of his year mates anyway it had grown a couple of inches over the last term. He had learnt that having it too short ended with it being an untameable mess, but having it just long enough made it look neat. With it about four inches long it fell straight with just a hint of wave in it. Any longer and he tended to look homeless, and while some could pull off the look, Mateo wasn't one of them. He couldn't pull of the dishevelled look, he had to put effort in to look presentable otherwise he lived in a perpetual state of seemingly like he had been dragged through a hedge backwards.

Mateo had just timed it perfectly so that he was exiting his room when Bruce was leaving his. The elder Banner was dressed in a classical black suit and white shirt, but his outfit then deviated from the norm by being finished with a green bowtie that was still undone around his neck. Bruce was shuffling as nervously in his attire as much as Mateo was, and when the pair noticed the fact they smiled at each other.

"I'm already disliking this evening," Bruce muttered as he pulled again at his cuffs. Mateo couldn't see anything wrong with the part of his outfit, but seeing as he had been doing the same thing less than five minutes ago he didn't comment on it.

"It could be worse; at least the event doesn't call for the Other Guy to make an appearance. I think slightly uncomfortable suit is better than almost public indecency," Mateo pointed out.

"True, and at least I can imagine Steve will be just as uncomfortable in a suit as I am. I'd prefer a black bowtie though," Bruce said.

"Then why don't you wear one?"

"It is again one of Tony's ideas, we are all wearing colour coordinated bowties that match our 'daytime' outfits as he puts it," Bruce sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Oh, well in that case," Mateo ran off and quickly snatched something out of his wardrobe before running back to his dad. "I may as well match you."

Bruce was touched by the gesture and the pair of them headed down to the garages where they were supposed to meet the rest of the team. As soon as they stepped out of the lift Bruce was accosted by Natasha who helped him with his bowtie before she turned to do the same thing for Mateo. The child in question stood pointedly looking at her, his tie perfectly done with a neat knot and at the correct length.

"I do have to wear one of these to school every day," Mateo pointed out.

"Sorry, I was just expecting to have to neaten the pair of you up," Natasha smiled.

"It's not my fault I haven't had to wear a bowtie for ten years, there isn't much call for formal attire in India," Bruce muttered.

Mateo took the time that they spent laughing to inspect those who were already here. It turned out they were almost the last to arrive, as Clint and Steve stood before them wearing a purple and silver bowties respectively. Natasha was in a figure hugging blue dress that flattered her shape perfectly and was twinned with matching shoes and clutch. However good they looked in their outfits, Mateo was pretty sure that they all were merely doing this to indulge Tony. In fact Mateo knew that they would much rather be ordering take-out and sitting in the communal kitchen. They had in fact done that pretty much every other night since he had returned home, apart from when he and Bruce had cooked. It showed how much they had come to like the man that they were prepared to do step out of their regular comfort zone just to humour him.

The lift dinged in announcement of its arrival, and Tony swanned out with Pepper on his arm. Naturally the billionaire looked as comfortable in his suit as he did in jeans and a Black Sabbath t-shirt, while Pepper looked a tiny bit self-conscious in her golden dress that matched Tony's bowtie. Even to Mateo's untrained eye the dress looked amazing, so the discomfort was probably merely the colour of the cloth rather than anything else. Overall the group looked smart enough to blend in with any crowd at the most expensive restaurants in the city, and knowing Tony that was likely where they were heading. The only thing that stood them out from the crowd was the fact that at least two of their number looked like they were ready to reach for a weapon and start a war.

As he looked at the group Mateo tried to guess which of them were armed. There was no doubt that Clint and Natasha had some kind of weapon somewhere on their persons, anyone who knew the pair would put money on that fact. Steve looked unarmed, but seeing as he was deadly fast with his fists and on his feet he didn't need a weapon to take out an enemy. He didn't need to look at his dad to know that he was unarmed, and considering the event he had probably been actively keeping calm all day to ensure his darker side wouldn't put in an appearance accidentally tonight. The red and black glitter that occasionally peeked from under Tony's cuffs alerted them to the fact he was wearing his suit bracelets, and could be suited up for battle in minutes.

Happy was their driver for the evening and he pulled the limousine close to them and the group piled in. Mateo had never been in a limo, and it looked like there was actually quite a few in the group who hadn't so they collectively explored the perks of the vehicle. Bruce glared at Tony who was eying up the champagne in the fridge, and luckily the billionaire stopped without comment. They did share out all the nibbles though as they likely wouldn't be eating for at least another hour by the time they had been seated and ordered.

Mateo raised the question that had been burning inside of him for a while whilst they were driving. For a group that prided themselves on their privacy then going out as a group unmasked was the height of folly. Tony proudly replied that actually he had done a decent amount of work with JARVIS and there was little photo evidence of the group out in public circulation. This meant that Steve at least had his relative anonymity, whilst Clint and Natasha had had theirs blown in the summer anyway. People had seen all their faces before in the footage of the battle, they just didn't know their daytime names, which was pretty much all the privacy they had left. Steve mentioned that people actually hardly ever expected to bump into an Avenger, so the times he had gone out for a run no one had batted an eyelid at him.

Tony was the only one who knew where they were going, apart from maybe Pepper who had likely made the reservation. All the rest knew was that they had been ordered to wear their fanciest suit/dress they owned in a specific colour. By the time Happy arrived at their location Mateo could understand why they had been ordered to do so. From the look of the establishment hinted that their individual meals were like to be at least a hundred dollars each, and that was without the price of drinks.

The rather star struck waiter led them to their table at the back of the room but away from the doors to the kitchen. They passed many more attractive empty tables, so their spot suggested Tony had requested so that they were not disturbed often. Bruce immediately angled for a spot with his back against the wall where he couldn't be snuck up on and Mateo sidled in next to him. Considering their entire group was made up of rather shifty people it was unsurprising that there was a little scuffle as Clint nudged Tony over so that the assassin could sit to Bruce's left, and Natasha joined him. Steve, Tony, and Pepper ended up on the far side of the round table with their backs to the open room.

It turns out it wasn't just their waiter that was star struck, pretty much all the patrons of the establishment were sneaking not-so subtle glances at them every few minutes. Mateo wasn't sure if he would have preferred to have his back to them to be able to ignore the stares, but thankfully once their order was placed and the drinks had arrived everyone settled down and conversations sprang up.

In stark contrast to their first shared meal where no one knew what to talk about, it was difficult to concentrate on one conversation at a time around the table. Steve and Pepper were happily conversing about something whilst Natasha occasionally chipped in, Tony and Bruce were unsurprisingly discussing some project across the table, and Clint had managed to find a topic that was to Mateo's taste and was not about magic that the two of them could talk about. Over the course of the meal their conversations occasionally became a little animated for the liking of the other patrons and they got a few stern glances. Bruce was the only one who really paid attention to them, seeing as Steve couldn't see through the back of his head, and it fell to him to cough pointedly so that the others lowered their voices.

Bruce had ordered for his son as Mateo had had no idea what on the menu would be appetising, so the arrival of each dish was an excitement for the child. He wasn't a fan of the small portions on each plate but seeing as the restaurant seemed to make up for that by having five courses he wasn't too bothered. Over the course of his time at Hogwarts he had started to get a bit of a sweet tooth, so he enjoyed the gooey chocolate pudding that looked innocent but turned out to be extremely rich in taste.

The five courses had taken their time to arrive, Mateo guessed that was intended so the adults would drink more wine in the meantime, so by the time Tony paid the bill and they moved to leave he was nodding off slightly. Luckily the movement woke him up a bit, for as soon as they neared the doorway they saw what was waiting for them.

"Seriously? Do these guys ever give up?" Clint muttered.

Standing outside in the freezing cold were five photographers, clutching the tools of their trade tightly in their numb hands. Although they were wrapped up warm it was obvious that some of them had been waiting nearby for at least half an hour.

"They are so desperate to get a photo of you all that they risk hypothermia and frostbite? That one in the brown coat isn't even wearing suitable shoes," Mateo pointed out.

"Unfortunately the Paparazzi do often prioritize the photographs than the more important things like personal space and their own health," Tony sighed.

"Which reminds me, I have another present for you when we get back home," Bruce muttered to Mateo as they started moving to the door.

Tony led the way out of the restaurant and into the flashing lights caused by the photographers going mental. "Listen up, you guys have been out here for ages so I know how cold you are. We are going to do a large group photo for you all then you are going to go home and warm up before you get pneumonia and try to sue me, alright?"

The five seemed pretty happy with that deal, and soon the Avengers had arranged themselves into a loose semicircle. It seemed that the group had had experience at taking group photos as they quickly moved into order. Steve and Bruce were in the middle, with Clint and Natasha to one side and Tony and Pepper on the other. Mateo was stood in front of his father, and Bruce had a hand resting on his shoulder protectively.

"Hey whilst you're at it, can someone take a photo on my phone?" Tony pulled out his Starkphone and carefully tossed it to one of the five facing them. "I think we only have one group photo and no one was half as smart as this when we took it."

Thankfully the group of photographers left without much argument after that, although they had managed to wrangle a photo of Bruce and Mateo together, as well as one of Tony and Pepper. Eventually they piled back into the limo and were soon safely in the tower once more, and Mateo knew he wasn't the only one hurriedly switching his suit for a much more comfortable outfit.

It seemed that their patience and good nature towards the group of photographers had been well received as the articles published about them the next day were actually rather mild. The group photo had been splashed on about eight tabloid papers and even a couple of news channels were running with it as a filler between more important items to bulk out the slow news season. Mateo had no taste for fame and the way that Tony seemed resigned to being chased every day, however he had to admit that they knew how to take a good picture. He didn't tell any of the Avengers that Tony had the copy from his phone as his screensaver on his lab computer, or that he had seen Steve sticking a copy cut out of the newspaper into the front of his sketchpad.

Hermione had texted him to let him know that the picture had made it onto some of the English newspapers, and Mateo had been rather annoyed at that. Although there weren't many people that would give him a hard time for being out with his family, he really didn't need more evidence of his existence here spreading. It didn't help his mood that apparently the media had focussed on the matching themes, and how 'cute' it was that Mateo was wearing a green tie, and how protective Bruce seemed of him.

Not many commented on Tony and Pepper matching, but then that relationship had been discussed and dissected over the last few years to the point it was old news. What was done was done, and Mateo would have to live with the consequences, whatever they would be. He was lucky that Kevin and Hermione were not the kinds of people to take the mick out of him, and Neville wouldn't see the newspapers anyway.

Bruce's extra present ended up waiting for a few days until the pair of them had a decent amount of time to themselves. At first Mateo was confused by the decision, but once he was given the wrapped gift he understood.

"So what is this?" Mateo asked as he gently started to unwrap the blue and gold paper.

"It's not really a gift, but more something to give me peace of mind," Bruce said evasively.

The child was careful as he lifted the leather pouch from the paper. As he didn't know what was inside it Mateo gingerly pried open the drawstring and felt inside. If the archaic design hadn't tipped the boy off to the pouches origin, the fact that he could delve up to his elbow into the pouch definitely gave it away. Inside Mateo felt a slim metal case and numerous foil or plastic wrapped packets.

"Plasters and painkillers?" Mateo asked again as he pulled out a handful of the packets.

"You know how much I worried about letting you go to a school on almost the other side of the world. And I doubt either of us will forget my reaction to your minor injuries from the troll. I'm not going to wrap you in cotton wool and keep you here, but I can't just sit and watch you possibly get into danger like that again," Bruce explained.

"So you made me a first aid kit. I like the personal touch, but you could have just bought one from a shop," Mateo pointed out.

"Not all of that is available in the shops," Bruce warned. "As it is I had to ask Tony to source most of the medications in there."

In response Mateo pulled the slim metal case out of pouch and opened the lid. Inside was six separate syringes filled with different coloured fluids and labelled with a date and name.

"These are pretty powerful anaesthetics and painkillers," Mateo said as he read the familiar neat but cramped handwriting.

"You're mature enough to know that no one can accidentally use these, they could stop someone's heart if not administered correctly," Bruce reinforced.

"Believe me Dad, no one will get ahold of these," Mateo swore.

"We both know that I am probably overreacting in giving you these, so there is also codeine in there for less life threatening events. But I feel a lot safer about you having this as backup than relying on you picking up some spell or potion to do the same thing. And on the flip side if any of your friends get into serious danger you'll have the reassurance of knowing you can help them even if you cannot use magic," his father said.

"Thanks Dad, I'll make sure to keep it with me all the time. And that no one else opens it," Mateo's voice was slightly muffled as he hugged his father.

"Knowing your luck you're going to be needing it relatively soon," Bruce sighed as he returned the hug.


	31. Chapter 31 - Spring

**A/N: Happy New Year! 2016 hey? I can't believe how quickly last year flew by. Amongst many of my resolutions that might not happen, I've decided to crack on with my own story. I have most of a plan... apart from the ending and some of the boring story progression bits. And I told my sister about my dream to be a published writer and I reckon I can wrangle her into being my beta for it!**

 **Thanks for all the amazing reviews, I love you guys! Seriously, your encouraging feedback (even just the follows and favourites) give me the confidence boost that is distinctly lacking in coming from other parts of my life. Have an amazing year my friends, you deserve it!**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirty One – Spring**

The Christmas holiday passed way too quickly for Mateo's liking, and soon his book bag was packed with a few meagre items. He only selected a few gifts to take with him, and the rest of the space was filled with his school robes and homework. Tony was the only one to come with them this time, as Mateo had insisted that he did not need them all to come and see him off every time he left for Hogwarts. He had also tried to convince them that when he returned for the summer he did not want a big party or welcoming committee. But Mateo wasn't going to hold his breath on that subject.

Tony could also have stayed in New York, but he apparently had some bridge building to do with a couple of English companies so he tied it into dropping Mateo off. Mateo guessed that they also didn't want to leave Bruce alone for any length of time, which Mateo was grateful for. Although public opinion of the Other Guy was positive no one wanted to run the risk of Bruce being kidnapped, or losing control and not being distracted by at least one of them.

Their arrival at the platform was brilliantly timed as Kevin was standing a few metres from the entrance having just arrived himself. Tony smiled charmingly and he chatted politely with Kevin's parents who were more than a little surprised at him acting so mundanely and caring to talk to them at all. The billionaire almost took normality to the extreme and eventually Bruce intervened and politely pointed out that the train would be leaving soon, and that they really should get the boys on the train. Hermione and her parents arrived at that moment and the introductions were made again, before the three of them clambered onto the train.

"Now, try and keep out of trouble Tony, and no showing off," Mateo said by way of goodbye.

"Hey!" Tony said indignantly as Bruce and his son laughed.

"Don't worry he has me and the Other Guy to keep him in check. You just worry about keeping your head down for this term. No trolls," Bruce said sternly.

"Yes Dad," Mateo said meekly.

"Or don't get caught so we don't hear about it," Tony chipped in.

"Tony! I'm trying to be a good father here," Bruce sighed.

"And I'm being a good Godfather by leading him astray," Tony shot back.

"I'm really not sure that is the point of a godfather," Mateo smiled at their antics.

"Well what are you going to do? Demote me and elect Clint to take my place?" Tony laughed.

"No, I'm just going to send you lots of parenting books," Mateo laughed at the horrified look on Tony's face.

"You can't do that! Pepper will get the wrong idea and she might actually want to have a child at some point!"

Mateo was still laughing as Bruce quickly pushed him to the door as the train whistled loudly, signalling its imminent departure.

"Be safe," Bruce said seriously.

"I will be, you be safe too," Mateo replied and hugged the man out of the window as the train started to move.

Bruce and Tony stood with the variety of parents on the platform and waved.

"You do realise that Clint made him pack his bow and arrows, right?" Tony lied in a conversational tone.

The mixture of anger and exasperation on Bruce's face revealed his knowledge of that particular subject.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Hermione, Kevin, and Mateo found Neville in a compartment alone, so they quickly piled in with him and started chatting about their holidays. Kevin was practically buzzing with excitement from his presents, apparently his non-magical friends were extremely jealous of his gifts. Some of them didn't believe that they knew the Avenger's son, so Kevin was dropping unsubtle hints that he would be wanting Mateo to visit over the summer.

The journey passed a lot quicker this time round than the first trip they had ever made to Hogwarts, and soon they were stepping off the train at the dark platform in Scotland. This time, instead of heading to the boats whilst being led by Hagrid, the first years were herded with the crowd in the opposite direction towards a road. There they heading towards black carriages that seemed to be pulled by black winged horses, but before Mateo could get a decent look at them he was bundled into the carriage by the others. He couldn't argue with them, there was a large queue and it was rather cold out so no one wanted to hang around if they could help it.

At the castle, where the crowds were less, Mateo clambered back out and went to inspect the horses. They looked like skeletons with the barest amount of muscle and flesh stretched over the top, whilst the wings looked ragged and weak. However each beast seemed lively and happy, and seeing as they pulled carriages they couldn't be as close to death as they looked.

"What are you looking at Mateo?" Kevin asked.

"The horses obviously. Aren't they fascinating?" Mateo replied as he gingerly reached out to pat one.

"I can't see anything," Kevin said in a confused tone.

The skin of the horse felt leathery as Mateo expected once he patted the beast. It seemed almost surprised to gain some attention and threw its head back happily. "What do you mean? They are right here."

"You can see the Thestrals?" Padma asked warily.

"If they are black horse things with wings and look like they could eat a decent meal, then yes."

Padma made an odd gesture with her hand and muttered something in Hindi.

"What is wrong with seeing them?" Mateo asked again and walked towards his friends, feeling that this was a conversation best held quietly.

"Because you can only see them if you've seen death, Mudblood. I thought you were supposed to be smart?" a haughty voice called over to them.

"It doesn't necessarily mean I know everything, Draco," Mateo said mildly in reply. "Thanks for enlightening me. I take it no one else has seen someone die then?"

"Normal people don't see death so early in life, who did your father murder that you have seen death?" Draco drawled.

"You're one to talk Malfoy, how many did yours kill?" Neville spoke up unexpectedly.

"Oh look, the worm speaks! The House of Longbottom really has fallen far if you can only find friends among Mudbloods," Draco smirked.

Mateo was shocked that he actually had to hold Neville back to stop the boy from attacking Draco. He was so close to blurting out the truth to wipe the smug look off of the Slytherin's face, but he bit it back and focussed on holding the boy back. He quickly changed the subject to try to diffuse the situation. "I first saw someone die when I was eight in the Congo, Dad was helping with delivering a baby and the mother died during childbirth. So I may not be normal, but I'm certainly not the worst person in the castle."

"What's going on here?" a voice cut into the argument before anyone could reply.

A ginger boy with a shiny badge pinned to his chest walked up from the darkness and surveyed the group suspiciously. Even if Mateo hadn't seen him before with his brothers he would have guessed that the older student was a Weasley.

"Nothing, I was merely trying to figure out how the carriages were powered and I accidentally bumped into Neville and almost knocked us both over. I believe Draco and his friends had just arrived," Mateo said quickly.

"You should be heading up to the castle," the Weasley said even more pompously than Draco. "And they are pulled by creatures called Thestrals, you can find out about them in the library."

"Ah, thanks! Come on comrades," Mateo smiled at the Weasley and easily nudged the group onwards.

Once they were a safe distance from Draco and Weasley, Kevin turned to Neville and forced him to do a fist bump. "Neville that was so badass! How are you worried that you're in the wrong house when you just said that? Only Mateo had the guts and wit to talk back that quickly. You better watch out Mateo, I think Neville might be fighting you soon for title as badass of the year!"

Neville blushed bright red but seemed quite happy with himself.

"Seriously Neville, I said all you need is confidence and then you will be an amazing person. You're already proving me right," Mateo clapped him on the shoulder with a huge smile on his face.

"Thanks guys," Neville's two words were incredibly heart felt, and he was smiling broadly when they split from him to head to their respective table.

Dumbledore opened the welcome back feast with another speech full of inane drivel and soon they were all tucking into the usual Hogwart's fare once more. Mateo was slightly disappointed with the food when he compared it to the Christmas meal he had had back at the tower, but he was still grateful to the House Elves that had cooked it and tucked in respectfully.

A quick look around the room told him that nothing had changed over the holidays, nothing earth shattering had happened to the student populace over the holidays, and Dumbledore was still smiling like an idiot. However Professor Snape possibly looked a little more tense than usual, and Professor Quirrell definitely looked paler and thinner than before they had left. However before he could be drawn into the puzzle of his professors Hermione caught Mateo's gaze and distracted him for the rest of the meal.

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He had been right, Professor Snape was definitely more stressed or worried about something, and he coped by being even more vindictive than usual. Neville, who had gained so much self-esteem after the incident with Draco, was able to keep his cool and worked alongside Mateo to continue to produce very good potions despite the even more intense glares being sent their way. He came close to cracking a couple of times but Mateo ensured that he kept his focus on the potion and their ingredients and the Gryffindor didn't slip up.

When Mateo got close enough to the Defence professor to scrutinise him he wasn't pleased to see that he did look ill, and his stammer was worse. Mateo, who had been trying to respectfully listen to his teachings, was now rather hard pressed to understand the man. Luckily he had spent quite a bit of his free time reading defence books so he wasn't missing anything by not being able to retain the point of any sentence spoken.

Other than that, lessons continued normally and Mateo retained his position at the front of the pack of first years. Professor Flitwick had pointed him in the direction of some harmless spells that the upper years were able to do for him to practice on. Exams were fast approaching so the part goblin was unable to continue their sessions, but the spells he had given Mateo were ones that couldn't backfire in any way. They would work or they wouldn't, so Mateo wouldn't have to worry about risking a trip to the Hospital Wing.

As they couldn't tell anyone about Neville's outburst the rest of Gryffindor were still ignoring the boy, so the Ravenclaws continued their tradition of allowing him to join them for breakfast. Quite a few people were benefitting from the arrangement, as Neville was learning more from them seeing as he had the chance to ask them questions without being nervous of being ridiculed. At the same time Hermione was learning social skills and was much less pushy and sounded less like she was insulting you when she spoke. Padma had grudgingly asked Mateo for lessons in speaking Hindi last term after her mother had badgered her via letter to ask Mateo to help her. However Mateo had been very humble about his fluency and made the lessons fun each morning, and Padma had happily told them all that her mother was surprised about her progress.

With Quidditch practice being scheduled for twice a week and the slow increase in homework Mateo was hard pressed to find time to relax, let alone find anything to get into trouble with. Tony expressed his disappointment once Mateo told him, but Bruce seemed happy that he had focussed on his education. The other Avengers sent various bits of advice for his physical training, or language lessons, and Garuda was rarely staying at New York or Hogwarts for long thanks to the number of letters he carried.

January quickly turned into February, and all too quickly the next Ravenclaw Quidditch match was looming on the horizon. Draco was becoming even more obnoxious than usual towards Mateo, even though he was unlikely to be participating in this match. Snape was also becoming even more intolerable, and none of the Ravenclaws were surprised when they were docked points for the most pathetic reasons, like sneezing, during his lessons.

The morning of the match arrived and Mateo arrived in the Great Hall feeling relaxed and happy. He had heard from the Avengers that at least Bruce and Tony would be coming to see the match, the rest were a little too busy to be able to justify taking a day out to come. Mateo had replied that he was completely fine with that, and that seeing as he was only the reserve seeker he didn't mind if none of them came. However Tony had scoffed at that, Mateo wasn't sure how he had managed to convey that over parchment but he had, and stated that they would come.

But the arrival of a small grey owl that zipped through the usual owl window twenty minutes before the post was due to arrive told Mateo that something was wrong. He was unsurprised when the bird landed on his arm and stuck its leg out impatiently, and it left as soon as the parchment was off its limb.

"What's up?" Roger asked as Mateo joined the rest of the Quidditch team.

"Dad's been called to go help with some undisclosed crisis somewhere so he can't come. I told him he didn't have to, but he was determined to come along," Mateo explained.

"He probably is hoping that his presence with keep you in check if you get called in to play," Duncan suggested.

"With Tony as my Godfather he is already resigned to me getting into some kind of trouble," Mateo told the beater. "Besides, I am unlikely to even fly in this match."

"We're against Slytherin, they are likely to be fouling as many people as possible so both you and Alice might end up being called up to replace someone," Roger warned him.

"I'll keep an eye on play then," Mateo promised.

"You're good, but they don't know how good yet. Your win against Cedric was close enough to just look like luck so they are probably suspicious but not aware of your talent. Don't rule out them fouling Cho and risking you coming into play, they might be planning on doing that so that their seeker has a better chance against an unexperienced player. I know the points are tight, but if you see the snitch then go for it and grab it, screw keeping tabs on who is winning," Roger ordered.

"Got it," Mateo said, more nervous than before.

They left to the sound of three quarters of the room clapping them on which helped at least Mateo feel a bit better. The weather was cold and raining finely, making the visibility slightly worse than perfect but not too bad. To add to the matter it was rather blustery so it would be easy to lose concentration if a gust caught them unawares. Mateo was less than enthusiastic as he pulled his robes and protective gear on, but perked up as he tried the waterproofing charm on his goggles and it worked.

As Roger predicted, the Slytherins were using the imperfect weather as good cover to foul the Ravenclaw team. Apparently they didn't normally resort to fouling the blue team, but the closeness in points between the two houses had prompted the snakes to play dirty. Grant was slammed from his broom ten minutes in, and Mateo was left alone in the door of their changing rooms as Alice flew out to replace him.

A further five minutes in and what Mateo was dreading happened. Cho had been attempting to fly around the pitch keeping well clear of all players and structures, but a sudden bludger had her swerving to the side. A gust of wind at the same time pushed her with high force into one of the towers and seemed to cause her injury. The whistle was blown again, and Cho landed holding her arm with a pained look on her face.

"Sorry Mateo," Cho said as she handed the broom over.

"It wasn't your fault, now get out of the wind if you won't go to get that fixed," Mateo said kindly.

He was slightly thrilled to be a part of this match, but the adverse conditions were worse than he was used to. He had very limited experience of flying compared to Cho, and if she could get caught out then he could be in the same boat very quickly. Remembering Roger's orders, Mateo was immediately on the hunt as soon as the whistle was blown.

The Slytherin seeker was having no trouble with the wind as he was at least twice Mateo's weight, so he was leisurely circling the pitch whilst the Ravenclaw seeker was forced to battle the temperamental wind.

Alice seemed to be doing a fare job of protecting the goals, and Slytherin had not pulled too far ahead of them to make catching the snitch now a futile effort. However the loss would be humiliating, so Mateo desperately threw all his energy into frantically searching for the snitch.

It was pure luck that he spotted it hovering directly in the middle of the pitch, and he abandoned the circling to head straight for it. Thankfully the other seeker was at the Slytherin goal posts by the time he clocked Mateo's purposeful actions. Mateo was actually making decent time towards the snitch, that had helpfully decided to fly _away_ from both seekers. The Slytherins were screaming themselves hoarse as their seeker gained on Mateo, while the rest of the stadium was hard put to drown them out cheering on the Ravenclaws.

A sudden massive gust of wind pushed both seekers, who were now neck and neck, upwards and away from the snitch. The distance was too close for them to easily correct in time to grab the snitch on the way past, but the Slytherin seemed content to pass over it and continue searching for it once it had probably disappeared again. Mateo was not so casually inclined, the weather had slowly been getting worse and he knew his chances of beating the other seeker to the snitch a second time was slim. So he did the first thing that he thought of that would enable a win.

Pretty much everyone in the stadium shouted in shock as Mateo seemed to slide sideways off his broom. However the boy did not plummet to the ground, but seemed to hang there as if frozen in place upside down under his broom. Some of the crowd who had binoculars shouted out what was going on. Mateo had hooked both ankles around the wood and had dropped himself straight down, pulling a very impressive impersonation of a bat.

Mateo could barely believe he was doing this, but his suicidal trick had meant his hands were now on a level with the snitch that was struggling valiantly against the wind. He almost felt sorry for the charmed object, so he put it out of its misery by carefully plucking it out of the air.

"Now I just need to get upright again," Mateo muttered to himself.

The snitch wasn't huge, but it was large enough to be a hindrance in his efforts to right himself. So he did the only logical thing he could think of, he put it in his mouth to free his hands up. The audience seemed to find that funny as the rumble of laughter reached his ears, but Mateo ignored whatever faux pas he may have committed.

Carefully he leant upwards and grasped the broom with his hands, before letting his legs let go. With his arms powering his movements now Mateo easily swung himself back onto the broom, just in time to be mobbed by the rest of the team. He spat the slightly slimy golden ball out once more and held it aloft again.

"You insane idiot!" Roger shouted above the weather.

"I am and you won't hear me denying it! But we won!" Mateo shouted back.

The team laughed at that and they happily carried Mateo from where they landed on the pitch back to the changing rooms. This time, without any guests, Mateo attended the entire after party and was the focus of attention for quite a bit of it. Hermione scolded him too, but did eventually admit that his move was quite clever if very reckless.

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Draco remained in a sulk for at least a month after the match, whilst the Ravenclaws started to look smug in a very magnanimous and polite manner. Students from Hufflepuff and Gryffindor did not look overly upset that Ravenclaw was in a pretty undefeatable position for both the cups at the moment, as long as Slytherin had been taken down a peg or two they were content for the Ravens to preen their feathers in pride. Mateo was starting to earn a reputation amongst the students thanks to his lucky streak in the matches, and he hated the attention. Luckily he had long perfected the art of smiling depreciatingly and slinking off and was able to lose even the most determined students tailing him.

However his tactics only worked so well, until two specific lads caught up with him.

"Alright there Banner?" one of the gingers said lightly to him from his left.

Before he had a chance to reply Mateo felt four hands grab him and he was shoved to the right and into a deserted classroom.

"I would be immeasurably more 'alright' if you hadn't just slightly kidnapped me," Mateo said as he looked at the twins.

"You're only going to the library, you can spare us five minutes," one twin said.

"Fred and George Weasley, at your service," the other continued.

"Mateo Banner at yours. Now what is this about?" Mateo asked.

"We just wonder why you are going by a different name?" the first twin asked innocently.

Mateo felt like he had just been doused in a bathtub of ice cold water, no one knew of his real name and he hadn't spoken it to anyone. "What do you mean? If you're referring to the fact I am adopted and not going by Smith then I would have thought that was pretty obvious,"

"Show him George," the first twin spoke once more.

George pulled out a tattered looking piece of parchment and unfolded before pulling out his wand. In a very reverent gesture, he gently tapped the wood to parchment and spoke: "I solemnly swear we are up to no good."

Ink started to appear, as if bleeding out from the wand and onto the parchment. In a few seconds the paper was covered in patterns, writing and footprints.

"This is a map we discovered in Filch's office, although back then it was just a blank piece of parchment. We eventually uncovered its secrets, and now we have a map of every corridor and room of Hogwarts that shows exactly where everyone is-."

"At any moment any day. Imagine our surprise when we figured out where you were," Fred finished and pointed.

In an almost empty classroom were depicted three sets of footprints, labelled 'George Weasley', 'Fred Weasley', and 'Harry Potter'. Mateo stared at the parchment for many minutes before he looked up.

"I have not told _anyone_ about this, so I believe this to be genuine. So what do you want from me?" Mateo asked in an extremely controlled voice.

"Why are you hiding?" Fred blurted out.

"I am not, I just want to live my own life before I get dragged into the war that is inevitably going to happen at some point," Mateo sighed.

"You seem very sure about it," George said.

"Voldemort isn't dead, isn't that pretty obvious? Until he is completely gone from this world then I doubt I'm going to get the peace I want," Mateo snarled.

A tiny perverse part of him was pleased when the two twins exchanged uneasy looks. They seemed to be silently conversing for a while before George spoke again. "Who knows?"

"Dumbledore and my family is all, but then I class the entirety of the Avengers as my family so that's nine of us in total. In the school it is just him and you two now," Mateo replied.

"We won't tell anyone, trust us we are good at keeping secrets," Fred said.

"You better not otherwise you will not be able to hide from me. I'm not in the habit of hurting others, but I just want some peace and quiet and if you ruin that then I will make you pay," Mateo glared at them.

"I have an idea," Fred rummaged through his pockets and pulled his wand out. "I, Fred Weasley, swear on my magic that I shall not reveal Mateo Banner's true identity."

A faint gold shimmer flashed over the boy's body but then was gone. George quickly followed suit and only then did Mateo relax slightly. "Thank you."

The way that both of the twins had suddenly changed from jokey and light-hearted to the most solemn he had seen them told Mateo it was a big deal. He didn't know anything to do with magical oaths, but they seemed to be a big enough deal for the twins to be sensible, and Mateo appreciated the effort. Although the twins were seen as jokers he didn't doubt that they would be very useful allies in the future, even if it was just as morale boosters.

"Think nothing of it," George waved his gratitude off. "And when the time comes we will be with you to beat the evil git into his grave."

"Good, I have a feeling we are going to need all the help we can get," Mateo sighed.

"With your family on your side I think our odds have already increased significantly," Fred grinned, and the other two nodded in agreement.

The twins let him go after that, and although they never really interacted again the trio would at least politely greet each other when they passed in the corridors. Their sort of truce got a bit of attention from their respective Quidditch teams but Mateo brushed it off by saying they two had merely found him discuss his flying style and that they had ended up loosely becoming friends. It seemed that Professor McGonagall was wary of their friendship, probably because she did not want a third prankster in the school. But as Mateo stayed the same polite student over the next few weeks and the castle remained standing she seemed to stop fearing about the end of the world.


	32. Chapter 32 - Terrible Subterfuge

**A/N: Hello all! Thanks to everyone for the reviews, we've topped 1000 reviews for this story! Thank you all so much!**

 **Sorry this is a day late, I don't think I stopped moving at all yesterday. Our work planted a forest school in the morning (the project I have been stressing over for months) then we had our Christmas party. I crashed at midnight and slept for 13 hours! But I've rejoined the living and am able to post chapter thirty two now!**

 **Just a quick heads up, I have got up to the fourth year of Hogwarts planned roughly (I have a lot of rewriting to do) so if you like this story settle down for the long haul!**

 **Thanks again to everyone who reads, reviews, favourites, and follows. You're all amazing and seeing the numbers roll up keeps me smiling!**

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 **Chapter Thirty Two – Terrible Subterfuge**

Mateo wasn't sure if he should believe Hermione when she started to rather frantically started to create revision plans and retreated further into her books. Having never sat any kind of exam before he had no idea what to expect, and there didn't seem to be a universal answer to his questions. The Gryffindors apparently weren't even thinking about the exams that were still two months away, and from what they could tell the Hufflepuffs weren't worried either. No one could ask a Slytherin what their plans for revision were, but they didn't look stressed. Even in Ravenclaw it only seemed to be Hermione that was starting to gear up for revision, the others in their year were going to start in earnest in a month.

So the American followed their example and aimed to start revising in a few weeks. For now he was enjoying the outdoors as the temperatures increased and the grounds became useable once more. Mateo had been fascinated by the snow before Christmas but had soon become bored with it as it limited how much time he spent outside. With the grass growing once more and the ground dry enough to walk on Mateo tried to get outside as often as possible.

Kevin readily joined him, and on occasion the other boys from their dormitory would join them too. The group ended up usually spending time by the lake either skimming stones or just watching the giant squid laze around. The majority of the students still stayed indoors so they were left to their own devices without worry of being interrupted by staff or students.

Mateo managed to cajole Hermione into joining them sometimes by pointing out fresh air was good for the brain. He also agreed to trading revision questions as they walked so that she wasn't panicking about not revising. It reassured him that he could answer about as many questions as Hermione could without having revised, although she could definitely give an answer in a lot more depth than he could. Hermione seemed to be annoyed at times by how much he did know, but they agreed that he read a wider variety of books for homework than she did. Bruce had taught him the importance of getting many opinions when drawing a conclusion, but Hermione seemed to be of the opinion that one book was enough. When they were forced to join in Kevin and Neville also managed to give good account for themselves, which cheered up the Gryffindor as he realised he wasn't too terrible in subjects other than Herbology.

They were heading up to dinner together one Sunday when they became distracted by something unusual. The evening was quickly drawing in and they were going to be late for the start of dinner as the quartet headed back from the lake to the Great Hall. However as they passed near to Hagrid's hut Hermione stopped.

"Fang doesn't look very happy," she noted.

Said huge dog was sat on the steps to the hut and was whining pitifully as he gazed balefully at the door. They had met Hagrid a few times that term on their wanderings around the grounds, and they had struck up a loose friendship. They knew first hand that the man couldn't cook, and had a worrying fascination with dangerous animals, but they enjoyed talking with the man. But even the less deadly animals and plants held a place of high regard in the man's heart and he was an endless source of information for the students. Hagrid had answered many questions for them whilst Fang had drooled on their robes or hands.

The first time they had met Fang Mateo had been slightly wary, having known the dangers of wild dogs from his travels. However Fang turned out to be a right softie and loved nothing more than being stroked as he drooled on someone. Like his owner, the dog wouldn't hurt a fly and was just grateful to receive friendship from those who could see beyond his slightly intimidating skin.

Normally Fang would be content to loll on the stairs of Hagrid's hut if the weather was fine, and he should have been just doing that that evening. However something was causing him to be worried.

"Do you think Hagrid is alright? Dogs can sense things humans can't, they reckon some can smell cancer and sense earthquakes," Kevin said.

"We should check that he's alright," Mateo agreed, it wouldn't take them long and they were within ten metres of the hut.

Hermione led the short line of first years up the steps and only slightly hesitantly knocked on the thick rough wooden door. "Hagrid!"

A muffled wooden thump alerted them to the fact that Hagrid was inside the building and awake. The sound reminded Mateo of someone hitting their knee on the underside of a table when they are caught unawares by someone else. Fang's ears perked up at the sound and he quit scratching at the door, however there was no sound of booted feet moving towards the door.

"Hagrid are you alright? We noticed Fang looked worried about something," Kevin shouted next.

"If you're not feeling well we can go get Madam Pomfrey for you," Mateo added loudly through the door.

"Nah I'm alrigh', hang on I'll be out in a sec'," Hagrid's deep voice called back hesitantly.

Considering how small the hut that Hagrid lived in was it took him an unusually long time to get to the door and open it. Even when it did open the giant of a man quickly slid through it and shut it behind him once more.

"Hullo you lot, shouldn'' you be headin' up for dinner?" Hagrid said in a very unsubtle hint.

"We were but we saw that Fang seemed to be worried, we wanted to check you were okay," Neville said.

"I'm fine, just a little sleepy is all, so if you don'' mind," Hagrid said politely before opening the door and attempting to edge back his hut.

"Blimey Hagrid, how warm are you keeping your house?" Mateo said as he felt the wave of heat that escaped through the open door.

"It migh' be a bit nippy tonigh', I wanted to make sure me an' Fang were warm tonigh'," Hagrid said quickly.

None of the four students facing him believed him, mostly because Mateo was back down to wearing just a T-shirt under his school shirt again. No one else on Hagrid's porch was wearing more than their normal robes.

"Hagrid," Mateo said in a friendly but warning tone. "We are your friends, I hope you feel that you can trust us if there is something wrong."

The man hesitated then, and stared in turn at each of the four gathered on the steps. He eventually seemed to reach a conclusion and let out a huge sigh, before pushing his door open. "I suppose it migh' be useful to have your help."

Fang quickly scrabbled into the hut, but instead of lunging onto the sofa he gingerly snuck behind it, his gaze darting between Hagrid and his guests, and the fireplace. Mateo hurriedly sat on the end of the sofa nearest the fire, still happy to be near heat, and the other three slid in next to him.

Before Hagrid had even returned to his customary seat by the fire the students had spotted what the giant of a man had likely been trying to hide. Sitting merrily in a huge cauldron dumped on the fire was a football sized egg. And the egg was gently rocking, causing quiet tapping sounds of shell on cast iron.

"That's an egg right?" Kevin clarified.

"Not just any egg, isn't it a dragon egg?" Hermione said in an almost reverent tone.

"Yeah, won it off a guy in the pub las' week," Hagrid declared proudly. "Seemed quite glad to be rid of it actually. I did a bit o' readin' about how to hatch 'em and although I had to improvise a bi' it's gone quite well so far."

"It's going to hatch now?" Neville said, and he slowly edged back from where they had all leaned forward to get a better glimpse of the egg.

"Probably tonigh', although hatchin' can take a while apparently," Hagrid said, obviously proud at how much he had read.

"You aren't keeping it here surely? Your house is made of wood, as soon as it starts breathing fire it'll burn this place down and your secret will be out," Mateo hated to be the voice of reason in this case but he was worried for the huge man.

"I could move it into the forest," Hagrid said with a tone of uncertainty.

"Aren't there unicorns and centaurs in there? Won't they be unhappy with a dragon being in there?" Hermione joined Mateo's cause.

"But it's a dragon!" Kevin pointed out excitedly. "Surely there are ways of keeping it contained, and wouldn't being raised by humans make it more docile?"

"Dragons aren't dogs, Kevin! They are much more ancient and less docile. It wouldn't think twice about taking on Hagrid before it even reaches Fang's size I bet. As soon as a student is in danger the Governors will have it put down to make sure it doesn't have the opportunity to eat any of us," Hermione said with certainty.

"But 'e ain't even born yet!" Hagrid said unhappily.

"There's no reason why it can't hatch and live happily, but it can't live here Hagrid. You know that," Neville said, just as said as Hagrid but for different reasons.

"Bu' what do I do with him?" Hagrid looked uneasily at the egg, which had started to rattle a little more insistently against the cauldron.

"Let it hatch and keep the dragon for a little while. Once it starts to get a bit too big, say half Fang's size, then we will have to find it a new home. And by then hopefully we will know what to do with it," Mateo said decisively.

"Do you wanna stay and watch 'im hatch?" Hagrid offered, although he seemed a little less excited than before he still seemed quite happy about the event.

"Sure, we're not going to have the chance to see a dragon hatch again probably," Kevin said and settled a little more comfily on the sofa.

Neville looked less happy about the idea but followed the example of his three closest friends and got comfy to wait out the egg. Hagrid placed plates of thickly sliced bread and cold meats on the large scarred coffee table, with five huge mugs of tea. Seeing as they were too late to go to the Great Hall without being obviously late the four fell happily on the food provided as they waited in silence for the egg to hatch.

Very little conversation passed between the five as they watched the egg spasmodically move, and time trickled passed steadily. When the first crack appeared in the surface of the shell Kevin jumped in surprise, almost as much as Neville did.

Hagrid quickly donned a pair of oven gloves and scooped the large egg from its metal incubator and almost reverently placed it in the hastily cleared spot in the middle of the coffee table. Mateo started in surprise when he saw they had been sitting in mostly silence for the last hour and a half, but before he could comment on that he was distracted by the egg.

The crack quickly increased from a barely visible hairline fracture into a large jagged hole that was about as wide as Mateo's little finger. Occasionally they could see something dark and slimy move through the beam of light piercing the egg. Occasional squeaks and clicks emanated from the egg too, and although he had no idea what the beast was feeling Mateo imaged it sounded angry and almost confused.

Although none of them had ever seen any egg hatch before, none of the four children were expecting how a dragon hatched. After the initial crack had covered a quarter of the circumference of the egg, the entire shell shattered into chunks as its occupant flexed its body and wings. The pieces of shell flew outwards like hard confetti as the dragonet stood on its back legs and stretched its already three foot wingspan to its fullest extent.

The beast was covered in slime from being in the egg, but even as the humans watched that moisture started to dry with the heat of the room. Its skin was a muddy grey, and like a puppy its skin seemed a little too large for its body at that moment. It's clawed wings and feet already threatened deep cuts for anyone who was stupid enough to aggravate the beast. There was no obvious anatomical identifier to tell the five whether it was male or female, but either way it was a beautiful creature.

"What are you going to call it?" Kevin asked in an awed voice.

"Norbert," Hagrid said without hesitation.

"Well met Norbert," Mateo said as he gingerly used a spoon to flick a piece of shell from the dragon's toe. In response the hatchling hissed and stamped on the spoon, its talons gouging small lines into the metal. Wisely. Mateo dropped the spoon whilst Hagrid chuckled in a paternal manner.

"He's a feisty one tha''s for sure," Hagrid fished a bloody piece of meat from a bowl that the four students had pointedly been ignoring. Before the dragon snapped it up Mateo got a good enough look to guess it was a chicken liver.

"We should be going, it'll be curfew soon," Neville said nervously. Whilst they had all enjoyed the opportunity to see a dragon hatch, now that it was free and in the same room as them Neville was decidedly less enthusiastic about hanging around.

"Yeh should go, I can'' be the one to get yeh into trouble," Hagrid agreed and stood to see them to the door.

Mateo was slightly confused by the man's priorities, and that causing the students to be out after curfew was more of a crime than letting them watch an illegal dragon egg hatching. But he just shrugged off the thought and happily grinned at the man in thanks as he walked out the door after Hermione.

"So I think this probably sets the bar as the most bizarre thing we are going to see while at Hogwarts: a dragon hatching in a wooden hut," Mateo chuckled.

"What was Hagrid thinking when he started hatching that thing? Not only is it completely illegal, but it's dangerous and a bad example to us students. Not to mention the fact he can't properly provide for it…" Hermione grumbled as they walked up to the school building.

"Well at least we convinced him that he can't keep it. We just have to find a safe and secret way of getting the dragon to somewhere more suited for a dragon to grow up in… Anyone have any ideas how we will do that?" the American-English student asked.

"Dig a huge tunnel from Hagrid's hut to the other side of the Forbidden Forest where your Dad is waiting to take it… somewhere…" Kevin's suggestion petered out at the end.

"I think getting parents involved should be a last resort, I don't know about yours but my Dad has me on my last warning before he grounds me for the summer," Mateo winced.

"I can't imagine your Dad grounding you, he's too cool," Kevin said.

"Tony is too cool to do that, I'm sure Dad wouldn't hesitate if he knew we were playing with a dragon," Mateo corrected.

"So what do we do now?" Neville asked as they headed up the steps into the building.

"We all think about how we could solve this, and meet up again at the weekend to see what we can do," Hermione spoke decisively.

But after the three days they had to think none of them had any sensible idea of what they could do to get the dragon out of the school. When they huddled together secretively in a corner of the library that Saturday the four traded ideas and suggestions. After two hours the best plan they had was still to involve the Avengers to get the dragon away from the school.

"Tony just can't fly onto the school grounds for no reason, that'll be suspicious and not subtle in the slightest," Mateo groaned after Kevin suggested it for the third time.

"Well there isn't anyone else we could get involved in this," Kevin muttered sullenly.

"We'd need someone who knows this castle like the back of their hand to get the dragon past the wards. The only people like that are teachers," Hermione sighed.

"…Not necessarily… I may have an idea, but I need to run it past the people first before I get them involved," Mateo said slowly. "I'll be back in an hour."

Without even stopping to gather up his bag or books Mateo hurried out of the library to find his targets. He could hear Hermione's whispered protestations as he quickly walked through the doors of the library but he ignored her. However once he was outside the library Mateo slowed to a walk as he tried to figure out where to go first.

His targets were renown for being able to pop up anywhere, and now that he knew their secrets Mateo had no idea how he would find them. And with it being the weekend they could be anywhere.

A quick, and polite enquiry with the Fat Lady told him that the twins weren't in their common room, and hadn't been since breakfast. The fact that it was raining narrowed down the likely locations of the twins to somewhere inside the castle, unless there was a tunnel out to Hogsmeade that they had used.

After an hour of frantic searching Mateo stopped in a random corridor and tried to think. Fred and George had disappeared into the wind, and none knew of their location. Although Mateo didn't know the pair well he guessed that they were deliberately hiding in order to do something secret and likely highly against the school rules. If he was right, Mateo guessed one of them at least would probably be keeping an eye on their map.

So, with no better plan, Mateo quickly ducked down a corridor that was rarely used and started to pace in a very specific pattern. It was a last ditch attempt, but he hoped that the twins were familiar with some of the Muggle communication methods.

"SOS?" the unexpected voice had Mateo jumping in surprise.

He had been pacing for a good ten minutes before he had been disturbed, and his mind had wandered into daydreaming. Fred's appearance had Mateo whirling to the sound with a beating heart.

"You look like a boggart just surprised you," Fred said with a chuckle.

"What's a boggart?" Mateo asked. "Never mind, I need your help… And George's actually. Where's he?"

"We were busy working on something when I spotted your pacing on the map. The nature of our work was too delicate to abandon so he's watching it. Want to come along and see?" Fred offered.

Mateo studied the twin in front of him for a few seconds before answering, "Alright then."

Fred grinned before rapidly disappearing around the corner he had presumably appeared around. Mateo barely had time to make note of the corridors they were heading down as Fred led him on a winding journey to his brother. Mateo tried to make a mental note of secret staircases, hidden behind tapestries, as they went. Within five minutes they had travelled all the way from the seventh floor all the way down to the dungeons, without even coming into view of the Grand Staircase.

Fred led the way past Snape's classroom and further down into the dungeons. They passed many unused classrooms and the corridor became darker and damper. Eventually the ginger opened a door that looked no less remarkable than the others in the corridor to Mateo.

Inside the room was sparsely lit with a few candles dotted around one table. On top of said table was a solitary cauldron and a heap of seemingly random ingredients. George was stirring the contents of the cauldron furiously, his hair standing upright from frequent frustrated rubbing and the humidity.

"Ah Master Banner, welcome to our humble lab. Come in, pull up a chair," George said, his eyes not leaving his work.

"Is this homework, or a more private project?" Mateo asked curiously as he cautiously approached the second Weasley twin.

"Private research," Fred said vaguely.

"Well I don't recognise half these ingredients, so have fun with that," Mateo said as he poked a pile of what looked suspiciously like dried skin. "Will you be able to stop and chat for a few minutes, or should I come back later."

"We just need to add the finch feathers and some strawberry essence and we'll be done," George said proudly.

"Feathers and strawberries, are you making something edible?" Mateo hazarded a guess at.

"We're experimenting with our own pranking range," Fred explained.

"It's still in the initial development phase though," George butted in. "So far nothing has worked."

"But we're hopeful," finished Fred optimistically.

"The more mistakes you make the more possibilities ruled out, until you find the right answer," Mateo said.

"Exactly," George tossed in the last few ingredients and extinguished the flames under the cauldron. "So what can we do for you?"

"Hypothetically, how would you go about sneaking a dragonet out of the castle?" Mateo plunged straight in.

"How old is it?" Fred asked, as both twin's eyes narrowed in suspicion and concentration.

"Less than a week," Mateo answered truthfully.

"Breed?"

"No idea, it's skin would be grey."

"Our brother works in a dragon reserve in Romania, I would get the dragon in to a crate, get it to the top of a tower, and send it off with him," Fred said.

"A dragon reserve?" Mateo said thoughtfully.

"In Romania," George finished. "If we had the time to get in contact with him we could get Charlie to pick up the hypothetical dragon."

"Would he be willing to do that?" Mateo pressed.

"Where did you get a dragon anyway?" Fred chuckled.

"I haven't got it, Hagrid won an egg in a pub and thought it was a good idea to hatch it and raise it. We've convinced that it would be best for it to go somewhere where it is less likely to be in danger of being found. But we could only think of getting my parents to come and take it away, which wouldn't be very secretive," Mateo explained.

"Charlie is very good at being discrete, he's kept Mum off our scent a few times as kids. Like the time I turned Ron's teddy bear into a spider because he broke one of my toys," George snickered.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he has a phobia of arachnids now," Mateo shook his head disapprovingly.

"He asked for it. Anyway, we'll owl him and get back to you when we know his answer," George shrugged and ignored Mateo's judgement.

"Thanks guys, I owe you one," Mateo grinned and edged towards the door.

"By the way, what does SOS mean?" George asked.

"It's a well-known Muggle signal, it means Save Our Souls in morse code. It's internationally recognised as a cry for help. I didn't know any way of getting your attention without actually finding you," Mateo explained. "I was lucky you guys were looking at the map."

"Well we know for the future, I'd probably better take you back to the Entrance Hall so you know where you are," Fred offered.

"Give it a few years and I'll know this place as well as you two," Mateo chuckled.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

"Problem solved," Mateo murmured as he slid into his seat in the library, an hour later than he meant to be.

"Where have you been? We've been waiting for ages," Kevin hissed.

"Solving the problem, I thought you guys would have guessed that from what I just said," now that he was in a lighter mood Mateo felt like joking with his friends.

"Mateo," Hermione said in a disapproving tone.

"Fine," Mateo sighed and relented. "I've struck a truce with the Weasley twins and they've agreed to help us. Their brother works in a dragon reserve, they are going to contact him and see whether he is willing to come and collect the dragon. If he is then all we would likely have to do is get Hagrid to box it up and it's out of our hair."

For a few seconds Hermione, Kevin, and Neville merely stared at Mateo. Eventually Neville shook himself out of his stupor enough to reply. "Well that was easy."

"I'm going to reserve my thoughts on that until the dragon is gone," Mateo sighed and picked up his quill and carried on with his homework.


	33. Chapter 33 - The Price of Generosity

**A/N: Hey guys… Bit of a terrible week huh? I am actually really gutted about Alan Rickman's death, I mean anyone who dies before their time is a cause for sadness. But I actually liked his work and will really mark his passing. It kind of makes me want to rewatch Galaxy Quest and Dogma… and all the Harry Potter films again.**

 **Thanks to all the new reviews/follows/favourites, I really need to actually get around to replying to reviews!**

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 **Chapter Thirty Three – The Price of Generosity**

Mateo huddled into his cloak and wished fervently that he had never agreed to go and check on Hagrid two weeks ago. The Forbidden Forest was cold, and the damp mist was making the youth feel even colder as it slowly seeped into his clothes. Losing house points had nothing on being forced to trudge through a cold dark forest in Mateo's opinion. Anyone who knew him knew that his dislike of the cold beat any fear he had, including whatever could be lurking behind the huge trees around him.

Charlie had sent a letter to the twins, who had passed it on, expressing his surprise and disapproval at them having a dragon on school property. However he had agreed to taking the dragon, or at least he had friends that were going to be heading to Romania who could pick up the dragon en route.

Hagrid had not been happy to hear he was going to be separated from his most recent pet before he had had it for longer than a fortnight. But in the ten days it had been out of its egg it had tripled in size and Fang was refusing to go into Hagrid's hut. There was a recent addition to the hut too: a giant water butt next to the front door served as a plentiful water supply for Hagrid's vegetables, and as a quick way of putting out any unwanted fires.

But when the Monday came along that Charlie had arranged for his friends to arrive Hagrid was at least compliant in helping them get the crated dragon out of the hut. Fred and George had agreed to help seeing as they had acted as the middle men between Charlie and Mateo. The dragon was so heavy now that the extra strength given by the two slightly taller and older boys was well received by Mateo.

The three had spent a few hours hidden in a classroom together working out the details of where the dragon would be easiest to be picked up from. Although the Astronomy Tower had seemed logical as people on brooms wouldn't have to descend too low to land, the three had settled on waiting by the lake. Trying to lug a large crate through the school would likely lead to them being heard and discovered, and there would be no way of explaining away how they came to have a dragon in a crate.

And their plan worked to a certain extent, Charlie's friends arrived just after midnight on broomsticks and soon were hoisting the large crate between the four of them. It was a bizarre silhouette cast by the quintet and their respective carriers, but Mateo was too busy feeling relieved about the dragon being gone to really appreciate the sight.

Their luck held until they reached the Entrance Hall. Fred and George were chatting animatedly together and none of the three of them noticed a pair of lamp-like eyes staring at them from behind the huge wooden doors they walked through. Mateo was ready to call it a night and was already eager for his bed, and he only realised the danger they were in until he heard the faint yet hurried patter of feet behind them.

"Guys we need to move," Mateo said urgently and the twins stopped their hushed bantering immediately.

"Where's the map?" Fred asked.

"You had it," George replied.

"No you had it," Fred said indignantly.

"My bad, you're right," Fred said as he found the folded parchment in his pocket.

But he was too late, the footsteps got closer as the twins fumbled with the delicate magical artefact. Mateo moved his head rapidly trying to figure which corridor they should head down to avoid their pursuer.

"No time, split up and go," Mateo shoved Fred towards the corridor on their left.

George and Mateo ran forward and split at the next corridor junction. But unlike the twins Mateo didn't have every corridor mapped in his mind. He turned the fourth right corner after a third left and had to pull himself to a halt. In front of him a smug looking raggedy cat with huge orange eyes stood right in the middle of the corridor.

"Good evening Mrs. Norris," Mateo said before quickly pivoting on his heel and running back the way he came.

However that turned out to be a mistake as he ran around another corner and almost ran head first into someone much worst.

"Going somewhere Banner?"

Standing right in the middle of the corridor was Professor Snape. In his left hand he grasped tightly George's shoulder, and his right held his wand to illuminate the corridor. Although the pure white light helped to show where everyone was standing, it also made everyone look ill. Snape's jet black eyes and hair, combined with his black cloak, combined with the light to make him look like a walking corpse. But conversely it highlighted every line of his frown and made him look even more angry and stern than usual, even though the man wasn't showing any more emotion than in an average potion lesson. Mateo normally had a decent level of respect for the man, but the rather chilling sight had him cowed even more than he normally would be in the adult's presence. Thanks to the silence in the corridor Snape only had to jerk his head to indicate his order for them to move. With one hand still firmly planted on George's shoulder the Potions Master turned around and walked briskly back the way they had come.

Mateo kept silent and followed Snape as he led the way, only the sound of their feet on stone floor breaking the silence. For a few minutes Mateo wondered why he wasn't being given the same treatment as George, but then he realised that Snape at least trusted him enough to let him walk alone. Neither of them were under any illusions that George would still hang around if the Potions Master let go of his shoulder. Although he was still feeling very worried about being caught, a tiny spark of joy ignited in his chest that he had managed to earn the trust of the icy man.

The two students were led back to the main staircase and up a couple of levels, then along a familiar corridor. Surprisingly felt more dread when he realised they were heading towards the Transfiguration classroom. Seeing as Snape constantly belittled and insulted any student outside of his own House, a tongue lashing from the man wouldn't have really been any different to normal. However receiving a dressing down from the Head of Gryffindor would be much worse. Mateo's stomach dropped lower when he thought that perhaps his own Head of House might be summoned to discipline him.

Snape shoved the door to the classroom open and steered the redhead towards the front of the room. Four candles were burning pitifully on the large desk, and as they approached the pools of light more candles flickered into light. Mateo couldn't see much because Snape's voluminous robes blocked a lot of the room, and it was only as they reached the front desk that he could see who was in the room.

In some ways he was relieved that it was just Professor McGonagall standing in the room, at least he didn't have to see the disappointed look on Professor Flitwick's face at the same time.

Snape had just pushed George to stand in front of McGonagall's desk when the classroom door opened again to reveal Fred being shoved inside by Filch. Before the doors closed again Mateo caught sight of the orange eyes of Filch's shadow staring smugly at him. He wasn't sure if magical animals had a greater scope for human-like emotion than normal animals, but when looking at Mrs Norris Mateo almost would guess they could.

"Thank you Professor Snape, Mr Filch, I will take it from here," Professor McGonagall had said.

Filch had not been too keen on leaving but Snape seemed to be in a surprisingly compliant mood and immediately turned to leave, without even smirking at the three students. When at the door to McGonagall's classroom he even nudged Filch on the shoulder to encourage him to leave too. The caretaker's departure from the room was slightly slower but after a minute the room was down to only four occupants.

"When I received a message from Professor Snape saying there were students out of bed, I was ready to put money on it being you two," McGonagall started as she looked at the twins with equal parts disapproval and resignation. "However I would never have expected to see you engaging in such behaviour."

Mateo felt himself physically shrink as he was pinned by a glare from the Transfiguration teacher. He had heard tales of how McGonagall could be worse to anger than Snape, but this was the first time he had experienced that look from the woman.

"What were the three of you doing out of bed?" the professor sighed as she tiredly rubbed her eyes.

Mateo subtly looked at the two boys to his left for guidance on the topic. He knew that Professor McGonagall would never believe the truth, but they couldn't risk it in case she actually did believe them. Fred and George didn't look too open to the idea of speaking, so Mateo followed their lead and remained silent.

Professor McGonagall took her time to look at each of the students, but after a few minutes silence she sighed and gave up waiting. "Fine, keep your secrets. All three of you will be receiving detention and have lost your houses fifty points each. I hope this will deter you two from wandering around so much. And Mr Banner, you had better have a long think about your decisions to break the rules in the future."

"Yes Professor McGonagall," Mateo bowed his head in submission and waited for the teacher to continue talking.

"I would hate to see you wasting your talents in favour of breaking curfew and playing pranks. I will be writing to your father about this incident, and to yours too Weasleys, although I doubt it will do much good in your case. However I hope the point deduction will make you think before the next time you break curfew. If I catch any of the three of you out at night again the house points you lose will be significantly more. And you'll find yourselves off the Quidditch team," McGonagall threatened.

The three of them murmured various words of acknowledgement but refused to meet the stern glare of the Scottish teacher. None of them dared mention anything about her tartan dressing gown or night cap. What had initially been quite an amusing sight to start with had quickly lost its hilarity.

With the unpleasant matter of disciplining done McGonagall walked the three of them back to their respective houses. Fred and George slid through their portrait hole without a comment, the two didn't crack a single joke. Mateo internally cringed at the thought at being left alone with the stern woman but didn't dare say anything.

The route from Gryffindor to Ravenclaw territory passed blessedly quickly and Mateo was anxious to be alone as soon as he could. As quickly and politeness allowed Mateo bid the teacher good night and ran up the staircase to the hidden Ravenclaw door.

It took a little while for the tale of how Ravenclaw lost 50 points, and Gryffindor 100 in the same night. Two days later everyone knew that the Weasley twins and Mateo had been caught out in the middle of the night. The three of them kept their activities secret which only heightened the rumours that circulated. More than one student expressed the worry that Mateo was teaming up with the twins, and quite a few spent at least one meal wandering what kinds of pranks the trio could come up with.

Facing Professor Flitwick had been hard, as Mateo had seen the look of disappointment in the kind man's eyes. Luckily with his Quidditch skills Mateo had already put Ravenclaw ahead of the other houses so the 50 points lost didn't make much of an impact.

Hermione and Kevin had been disapproving that Mateo had gone without them, they had been in on the secret so they felt they should have helped. However they all agreed that with being caught they would have put Ravenclaw at the bottom of the house league. Neither of the two shunned their friend, but they noticed the Gryffindors were substantially cooler in their attitudes to the Weasley twins.

In the potions lesson after being caught Mateo made sure to keep his eyes down and to stay out of the limelight. He was expecting Snape to rub it in and be even more scathing when he spoke, but the Potions master only addressed the boy when needed and left it at that. Mateo didn't complain and happily left the classroom with his peers, giving the teacher a customary nod of thanks for the lesson.

On the Friday evening Mateo reluctantly left the common room just before eight and headed down towards the Entrance Hall. He and the twins had received instructions for their detention earlier that day, so he hadn't had too much time to mull over what they would be doing. It wasn't encouraging to see Filch waiting with a lantern by the large doors, and the fact the caretaker had a large evil smirk on his face was plain unsettling. Mateo arrived first and had the horrid honour of waiting alone with the man. However the twins arrived on the stroke of eight pm as required.

"Come on then, you three have a treat in store," Filch's twisted grin widened as he turned and led the way out into the darkness. "If I had my way they'd bring back the old punishments for breaking the rules. A good caning would sort you three out. As it is I'll just have to settle for hoping a night in the Forest will show you the error of your ways."

Mateo shot a worried look at the twins, and was surprised that neither of them seemed at all phased by the revelation. In fact, seeing as Filch wasn't paying attention to the twins in favour of navigating the poorly lit lawn, Fred and George were starting to crack small smiles of relief. Their reactions were the complete opposite of what Mateo expected from Albus' announcement at the beginning of the academic year.

The evening became even more bizarre when Mateo realised they were heading to Hagrid's hut. It would hardly be a punishment being out in the forest with the giant man who well knew the forest and its inhabitants. The sudden rectangular glow that appeared then disappeared alerted the quartet to the fact that Hagrid had just left his hut.

"Evenin'," Hagrid called when they got within earshot.

"Don't treat them like it's a walk in the park, they're supposed to be being punished," Filch snapped back grumpily.

"O' course," Hagrid said in a less jovial tone. However once Filch had turned to leave the three of them alone with the Groundskeeper Hagrid's normal pleasant smile returned. "Somethin' has been attacking and killing Unicorns in the Forest. I foun' evidence of one bein' hurt this mornin' and we're going to go and try and find it."

"How are we going to go about doing that?" Mateo asked as Hagrid led the way into the forest.

"I know roughly where it was at lunch, we'll find tha' spot and go from there," answered Hagrid.

For a detention the first hour of their time in the forest was surprisingly jovial. Mateo was still on guard as he wasn't ready to believe that they were completely safe. Fred and George were cracking jokes and were treating the evening like a walk around Hogwart's Lawns on a sunny Friday afternoon. Hagrid and Fang wound around the towering trees with ease that spoke of many trips into the gloom.

The first time Mateo saw Unicorn blood he was transfixed. The fluid glittered like starlight in the limited light cast from the moon above, and turned to shimmering gold under Hagrid's lamp. The splatters of silver on the ground in front of him were the most awe inspiring sight of everything magical that Mateo had seen so far.

"It was here," Mateo pointed out the silver pool the size of a galleon.

"That's qui'e fresh," Hagrid observed.

"We should spread out to find the blood trail," Mateo suggested. He was feeling slightly braver than when he had first entered the forest.

"We each pick a direction, mee' back here in five minutes," Hagrid nodded his agreement.

The three students quickly lit their wands and lifted them high as they turned and slowly searched the ground in front of them for a sign that the unicorn had passed their way. Although it was unfortunate something was hunting such beautiful creatures, the fact their blood shone so purely meant if a drop was in eyesight then it would quickly gain anyone's attention. Mateo just hoped that that fact wouldn't lead the hunter straight to its prey.

So intent was he in trying to find any trace of the unicorn Mateo only realised his fatal mistake when he realised his five minutes were up. He straightened his neck from staring at the floor to look around himself.

"Well this isn't good," Mateo muttered as he realised he didn't recognise a single feature around him.

In theory he would have walked in a straight line to his current point, but the descended mist made finding his way back even harder. What made the situation even more bleak was the fact Mateo had completely turned himself around in his search for a familiar tree. As he was about to settle on a direction and venture back to the meeting point a glimmer caught Mateo's gaze. He had found more unicorn blood smeared against a tree trunk, as if the beast had staggered wearily and brushed against the flora.

"Hagrid! It's here!" Mateo hollered at the top of his voice.

He knew calling was not the best idea, any hostile creature in his vicinity would know where he was, but he was not too keen on getting even more lost than he possibly already was.

Filled with uncertainty Mateo wrapped his cloak tighter around himself and shivered. The mist and complete silence was making the forest even more eerie than it would normally be, and staying still had Mateo quickly losing warmth and courage.

Mateo was about to give in and try sending up red sparks from his wand when he heard something moving nearby. Although his mind had played tricks on him already, creating false shapes in the mist, this time Mateo was certain he was not alone.

The cracking of twigs had Mateo spinning violently in the direction of the sound. With nothing better to do, and being unwilling to be pounced on, Mateo gingerly snuck towards the noise. Careful to avoid standing on any dry material that could emit a sound the Ravenclaw inched around the huge trunk to look at the nearby glade. What he saw shocked and horrified him.

A unicorn lay in a heap in the dirt, its side heaving from fright or pain, or both. Mateo couldn't see the fabled horn that should be adorning its flawless head as a black mass was hunched over it. The faint sounds of lapping and sucking drifted through the mist to Mateo's ears.

Whatever the mass was, it was drinking the blood of the unicorn. Mateo felt immense outrage at the fact that something had dared harm such an innocent and beautiful creature. Without really thinking he aimed his wand at the black figure and fired a stunner. The red bolt of light flew towards the mass but ricochet off a silently and blindingly fast cast shield. Mateo realised his second idiotic mistake in a very short space of time and gulped nervously.

In front of him the black mass rose to its full heighted and turned to face the first years student. Now it became obvious that the attacker was humanoid at least that was dressed in a cloak that hid its features, but didn't impair it from wielding its wand. Without any back up plan possible Mateo gripped his wand tighter and stood straight. The likelihood of him surviving this meeting was virtually negligible, so running would be pointless. All he could do was stand straight and meet death like a man.

It was at times like this that he really wandered why he was a Ravenclaw, rather than an impetuous Gryffindor.

The being was barely five metres from Mateo, who was getting close to thinking he might be able to at least identify whatever had been killing the unicorns, when a thundering broke their silence. All Mateo was aware of was a flash of tawny hair that flew over his head before the black robed person was fleeing the scene. The fact that it was being chased by a centaur should have caused Mateo to gape in amazement, but really he had seen too many new things for him to react with the amazement it deserved.

Soon he was alone in the glade with the unicorn, and the sight of the animal in distress had Mateo running to its side. Halfway down its neck was a small hole that leaked silver down onto the dirt under the unicorn. The wound was rough and uneven, as if it had been created by something with quite short teeth, almost like a human. But Mateo shied away from that thought, he daren't think anyone would be that cruel to tear a hole in the beast's neck through brute strength.

Even as he watched the rate of blood flowing from the wound was slowing, as if the unicorn was almost empty of the essential fluid. That caused Mateo to panic and he quickly reached for the pouch that never left his belt. Although he doubted any Muggle medicine would be enough to safe the animal, Mateo had seen some potentially helpful vials at the bottom of the pouch. His father hadn't mentioned them, so Mateo wasn't sure if it was Tony's doing or Bruce's, but he was incredibly grateful that the essence of Dittany was in his pouch.

A while ago, whilst perusing a medical text book, Mateo had read how even a few drops of dittany could heal the most drastic of wounds. Combined with a blood replenishing potion, which was also in his pouch, Mateo was sure that the unicorn at least stood a chance of surviving the night.

The sound of hooves returning alerted Mateo to the fact that he was no longer alone with the injured beast, but he didn't turn his attention away from treating the animal. Only when the wound was healed and the potion forced down the unicorn's throat, with some gentle words of encouragement, did Mateo turn to the newcomer.

"Nice to meet you, sir," Mateo said hesitantly as he craned his gaze up at the centaur.

The half human, half horse was over seven foot in height, but as he was on his knees by the unicorn the centaur seemed even taller.

"It is not everyday that a human risks their life to save a creature," the centaur began.

"No one with a heart could stand by and watch it die," Mateo said meekly.

"But few would do what you did, Harry Potter," the centaur countered forcefully.

"My name is Mateo Banner," Mateo said quickly.

"I am aware of your chosen name, but you cannot deny what the stars call you," Mateo gulped at that statement. "It is an honour to meet you, I am Firenze."

"The honour is mine, I doubt many wizards can say they have spoken to a centaur," Mateo bowed his head respectfully.

"If only more wizards were as polite as you," Firenze said, almost in a resentful tone.

"How could anyone not treat one of your kind with respect?" Mateo said in astonishment.

"I do not claim to know the minds of wizards, I can only say what the stars tell me. And all I know is that you are fated for great things," Firenze stated.

"I've heard," said Mateo with a humourless smile. "I don't suppose the stars can give you a hint as to whether I will be successful or not?"

"The stars can give a glimpse of the future, but what we see is not set in stone. A single act can change the entire future of the entire world, as your father and his friends have proven," Firenze smiled at Mateo's amazed look. "Oh yes, we can see what is happening even to those across the seas. Unlike humans, we acknowledge any event that the heavens tell of."

"Mateo!" the faint calling of a familiar voice rudely ripped Mateo back to the present.

"Thank you for saving my life," he said quickly as the sound of feet became clearer. Soon the centaur and boy were able to distinguish two pairs of lighter feet and one very heavy set of feet.

"'Ere you are," Hagrid said, sounding immensely relieved.

"Sorry guys, I got lost," Mateo said sheepishly. "But I found the unicorn."

"It's not hurt," George said happily. Indeed as Mateo and Firenze had been talking the unicorn had surged to its feet and had been nervously trembling at the edge of the clearing. It was obvious it was still unhappy with being in the area, but it seemed reluctant to venture out to the forest depths on its own.

"It was, but I managed to heal it with some potions Dad gave me," Mateo corrected him.

"You should be going, the woods are not a safe place to be. The evil that stalks in the shadows will return," Firenze said with certainty.

"But what about the unicorn?" Mateo asked.

"I shall make sure she makes it back to the herd. I'll raise the topic of guarding them with my herd and try to convince the leaders to act," the centaur said.

"Thank you Firenze, I hope we meet again soon," Mateo said and bowed slightly once more.

"Good luck, Mateo Banner, and may the stars shine brightly on your path," the centaur said before striding away with the unicorn in tow.

With their mission a success Hagrid led them easily back on an unseen path back to the forest edge. The three miscreants would be back in their respective common rooms by ten pm, which was apparently quite early comparing to some detentions Fred and George had been in. Hagrid seemed quite happy with their work and happily thanked them for their part in saving the unicorn's life.

All in all it was quite a cheery three who headed back into the school. Mateo didn't give Fred or George any kind of hint that anything more had happened in the Forest beyond him getting lost and finding the unicorn. But as soon as the twins split routes from him to head to their beds Mateo immediately sank into his thoughts. Even when he was tucked up in bed he lay awake for a long time as his brain churned over what exactly the cloaked figure wanted to make it be prepared to kill unicorns.


	34. Chapter 34 - Trapdoor and Truths

**A/N: Tada! I'm far enough with editing chapters that I thought I would treat you guys to a surprise chapter today! Also I want to pick up the pace and get to something new and more interesting, I feel like we've been stuck in Year One for ages.**

 **And for a more selfish reason I have to admit I want to start writing my own story for publishing but I feel like I should finish this first... But we are going to at least Year Five, so we have a long journey ahead of us. So perhaps keep an eye out for other random chapters popping up frequently in the next fortnight or so!**

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 **Chapter Thirty Four – Trapdoor and Truths**

Throughout the entire year Albus had sat at the head table for every meal, a constant reassuring presence for the students and a symbol of authority. But he was missing at dinner one evening near the end of May, and Mateo was instantly on the alert. As much has he had viewed the man with contempt for his actions when he had been a child Mateo had to admit the old man was a competent head teacher… mostly. Having a labyrinth of puzzles and possibly a murderer in the grounds could just be a major one off oversight. After his trip into the Forbidden Forest Mateo was sure that whoever was responsible for the attempted theft at Gringotts had made it to the school.

"Dumbledore's gone," he noted as they sat down together.

"I heard some Gryffindors talking, apparently he was seen leaving the school quite quickly earlier with a broom," Hermione said as she started dishing pasta onto her and Mateo's plates.

Mateo said nothing else on the matter, but he was surprised that everyone else failed to notice the tense looks on two members of staff's faces. He had heard Ron muttering about how Snape was an evil git on many occasions in the library, usually when the Gryffindors had a particularly long piece of homework to do, but Mateo knew that he wasn't really that bad. There was certainly another adult in the school that Ron should truly be scared of, and it wasn't the black-haired teacher. In fact it was the other tense professor sat at the Head Table that Mateo was more wary of, and the fact that Quirrell was looking more alert than usual had Mateo on edge. Without Dumbledore at the school he knew the likelihood of something happening tonight increased exponentially.

So when everyone else was walking back up to the common room from dinner he ran off, under the pretence of needing to talk to Flitwick, and collared a specific pair of twins.

"I need that map you have," he muttered to them as he pulled them into an empty classroom.

"The little raven is getting rebellious thoughts it seems dear brother," Fred said.

"So it seems dear brother," George smirked.

"Sorry guys but I am not in the mood for this today, can I borrow the map or am I going to have to do this the hard way?" Mateo huffed.

"What does the hard way involve?"

"Sitting outside the forbidden corridor all night until something turns up. So, can I have the map?" The three of them had barely spoken more than three sentences to each other over the past month but Mateo felt that they were well beyond lying to one another.

"Sure, just try not to get it confiscated," George handed the parchment over without further ado.

"If I do get it taken then I shall compensate you. Although I doubt that there is much you haven't memorised of the school," Mateo smirked.

"Only the dungeons," Fred admitted.

"Thanks for this," Mateo said and abruptly left the room before the twins asked any more questions.

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It was not hard for him to beg tiredness as an excuse to slip away from his housemates that evening, and once he was safely ensconced in his bed Mateo revealed the map and pored over the corridors of the third floor. He heard the rest of his year mates enter and quietly get ready for bed, and then the room fell silent once more. Four hours after everyone had gone to bed Mateo finally saw movement on the third floor. The movement almost shocked his senses, after sitting completely still watching empty corridors the motion at one in the morning was delivered a pleasant jolt of adrenaline to his system.

Quirrell had appeared from one page and slowly, probably hesitantly, trod down the corridor until he reached the locked door. Once there, he paused before stepping through. He again seemed to hesitate for a while before walking to the centre of the room and disappearing entirely. Mateo frantically ruffled through the map but could not find the man anywhere.

He cursed quietly in frustration, in Malayalam to boot, and scrabbled as quickly and as silently as he could out of bed. In five minutes he was outside of the quarters that Professor Flitwick was apparently in and was hammering on the door. He didn't know whether it was possible for someone to drop off the map, but seeing as it correctly identified who he was Mateo was inclined to trust the inanimate object.

"What are you doing little Raven?" A portrait of a young lady to the right of the door asked sleepily as Mateo waited for his Head of House to appear.

"I need to talk to Professor Flitwick as a matter of urgency. I have reason to believe something we discussed is being threatened," Mateo said vaguely. He cursed when he realised what he had said wasn't exactly as cryptic as he had hoped, but he focussed on the present rather than berating himself.

"Wait here," the fair woman disappeared, leaving only a painting containing a tree with a raven sitting in its branches. The raven seemed to be scrutinising him as if it was as intelligent as the woman who had just left.

Soon after the woman was back and the door to the quarters was opening. Professor Flitwick stood there in the process of tying his dressing gown and looked up at the student in tired confusion.

"Mateo? What is the meaning of this?" he asked.

"I'm extremely sorry for disturbing you at this hour Professor but the Philosopher's stone is in danger," Mateo blurted out.

"How do you know this? Come in," the teacher pushed his door open wider and ushered the child in. Mateo didn't see but felt the silencing and privacy wards being put up to ensure that no one else could accidentally, or purposefully, listen in to the oncoming conversation.

"Some students I know were in possession of this map, and I borrowed it to watch the corridor tonight as I suspected something would be afoot. I saw Quirrell go into the forbidden corridor and he has not come out yet," Mateo pulled out the parchment and flattened it out on the low coffee table near the fire.

Flitwick leaned over it and Mateo could tell he was impressed with the spellwork involved, but as his eyes roved over the parchment to the room they were in his eyes suddenly held a look of shock.

"Are you sure this map is correct?" he asked casually in a failed attempt to hide his shock.

"I'm certain Professor, trust me. But right now can we focus on the more important fact that Quirrell is going after immortality? I'll answer your questions later," Mateo urged. He could tell what had caught the eye of the Charms teacher, and knew that he would be doing a lot of explaining that night.

"Of course," Flitwick seemed to physically pull himself back together and continued to scan the map for the other teacher. "He really isn't on the map, the corridor leads to a trapdoor that probably wouldn't appear on the map as it is only temporary. I need to go and stop him."

"You cannot go alone," Mateo argued.

"I have been the world duelling champion for three years in a row, Quirrell is no match for me," Flitwick stated without boasting.

"But Quirrell has done the impossible and broke into Gringotts. No normal human could do that, are you prepared to fight someone who potentially works with Dark Magic. What if he is possessed, what if it is Voldemort?" Mateo pointed out.

"Hmm, I cannot argue with that," Flitwick mused.

He headed over to the fireplace and grabbed a handful of glittering black powder from a pot next to it. He threw the dust into the fire and the flames suddenly turned green. "Minerva! The stone is threatened! We need to move!"

The fireplace had barely had chance to return to its normal cheery orange colours before the flames turned green and a figure stepped through. Mateo was intrigued by the concept, then realised that Professor McGonagall was standing in front of him in a tartan dressing gown with a nightcap on and was lightly glaring at him.

' _This is certainly turning into an interesting evening,'_ Mateo thought. He knew of the Transfiguration teacher's night attire, but seeing a glare aimed at him for no reason was surprising.

"Mr Banner, what are you doing here?" Professor McGonagall asked suspiciously.

"He is the one who figured it out and alerted me. Quirrell has gone after the stone and could be possessed, do you think the two of us will be enough?" Flitwick asked quickly.

"Probably, we can't wake Severus and compromise him, and Pomona should be left to take charge if things turn sour. And we cannot wait for Albus to return as he could still be a few hours yet," McGonagall did not seem worried by their odds which reassured Mateo.

"Will you stay here so that we can have our little talk when I get back?" Flitwick asked politely.

"I will, if you feel it would be beneficial then Professor McGonagall is welcome to return to hear it too," Mateo sighed but nodded.

He wanted to run and deny to the Professor that he knew anything about Harry Potter, but the chances of the shrewd charms teacher believing that was less than slim. Especially after he had shown the man the map, and that had been accurate with everything else it had shown. _'Better to get it over with,'_ he thought resignedly.

"We will be as quick as we can," Flitwick said and they practically ran out of the room.

Now that he was left to his own devices Mateo took the time to survey his surroundings. The room was decorated in blues and golds like the House common room, and pretty much every inch of walling was covered in bookcases. Only spaces for doors, windows and the fireplace were left bare of books, so Mateo wasted a good portion of time surveying the titles on the spines. The majority were on charm work, some on spell casting and duelling, a variety of other school topics, then an odd section of unrelated random books. Seeing as a number seemed to be fiction Mateo guessed it was the professor's personal collection.

With his inspection of the room done Mateo was left with no new source of entertainment and no idea how much longer he had to wait. By his estimate he had perhaps wasted nearly an hour of time just surveying the vast collection of books, and had a small internal debate as to what to do now. Considering the time of night, or morning, it was, he decided to try and nap until the professors returned and woke him up. So he curled up on the rug by the merrily crackling fire and let the warmth of said fire lull him into a doze. It was already approaching two in the morning and he was not willing to try to stay awake for the professors' return if they were going to be a while.

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Mateo was not best pleased when he felt a hand on his shoulder gently shaking him awake. He was warm and comfortable, and unwilling to fully wake up, so he shuffled a bit and sleepily mumbled to the person touching him. "Clint I swear if you sneak into my room through the air vents one more time…"

The sound of two voices chuckling at him tiredly was completely different to those he was used to. In an instant Mateo was awake once more and sat up hurriedly. "Sorry about that Professors."

"It's quite alright Mateo, I shouldn't have insisted we kept you behind seeing as it is so late," Flitwick said gently.

Mateo didn't reply immediately as he couldn't help but spot the signs of injury on the two of them. Both had numerous scratches on their bodies, and McGonagall's hem was still smoking slightly. Thankfully none of the wounds looked too severe or debilitating, and Madam Pomfrey would likely be able to heal them in seconds. However the fact that they were injured at all had Mateo wondering exactly what had been below the trapdoor. It seemed that the Cerberus wasn't the only lethal trap in the school that year.

"I take it there was more in that corridor than just a stone?" he asked hesitantly.

"We enchanted a number of traps to dissuade someone from trying to get to the stone, not all of them were easy to get past," Flitwick agreed.

"Sorry but I still can't believe that the Headmaster thought that that was a good idea to have in a school full of students," Mateo shook his head.

"It will be dismantled and gone as soon as possible now," McGonagall said firmly.

"If you are feeling up to it then perhaps we should get on with our little discussion?" Flitwick nudged the conversation back on track.

Mateo looked at the pair thoughtfully for a while before he blurted out, "Can I trust you?"

Professor McGonagall looked slightly affronted by the question, but Flitwick gestured for her to keep calm, "I swear that whatever is discussed here will not leave this room."

McGonagall watched her co-worker look honestly at the boy and waited patiently. She had no idea what was going to be revealed, but Filius had been rather out of sorts as they had traversed the chambers below the school. He had been as focussed as she ever knew him to be in situations of extreme stress, but there was no denying that as soon as each puzzle had been passed his mind wandered to something else. The fact that he had practically sprinted back here also alerted her that something highly irregular was likely to happen between the man and his student.

At first she was going to bow out of listening to their discussion in preference of returning to her bed, but the Charms teacher's excitement and confusion piqued her interest so she followed him. She waited patiently as Mateo seemed to sit and think deeply over something, until five minutes later he sighed and shuffled to get comfy. He was still sitting on the rug with his back to the fire and seemed to be gaining comfort from the warmth.

"I recently learnt of the existence of an artefact that showed the entirety of the school, every classroom and person in the building. I knew something was going to happen today, so I borrowed it to watch the corridor tonight and saw Quirrell going down. Unfortunately the map never lies, so Professor Flitwick learnt something else when I showed him the map that Quirrell was no longer appearing on," Mateo was mostly explaining for McGonagall's sake, and he produced the map and unfolded it flat on the table.

Professor McGonagall looked at him then the map in confusion. He merely gestured for her to look, which she did. The spellwork and detail created was impressive and she wished that she could meet whoever had made the map. However her wonder disappeared into a less pleasant sensation as she realised that the rooms displayed were Filius' own quarters, and that Harry Potter was standing exactly where Mateo was.

"What?" Minerva said faintly as she sat back on the sofa gingerly.

Flitwick quickly called for tea service and within moments a tray of biscuits, a pot of tea and three cups appeared to the side of the map on the coffee table. Mateo was still impressed with the powers of House Elves to make matter just disappear from the kitchens and reappear anywhere. However he kept his silence as Flitwick made up three quite sweet teas and pressed one into the woman's hands. Mateo nodded his thanks and took a sip of the still rather uncomfortably hot drink, savouring the taste as it flowed over his tongue. He knew that what was going to come next and he would gratefully take whatever fortification the tea could provide for him to face telling people his past.

"I think it would be best if you started from the top… Would you prefer us to call you Mateo or Harry?" Filius asked.

"Mateo please, it has been my name for almost the last 6 years and I prefer it over my old name," Mateo sipped his tea again and gathered his thoughts. Thankfully the two adults sitting on the sofa did not press him to begin immediately so when he started he was able to be quite composed and concise.

"Well, after Voldemort killed my parents I ended up being placed with my relatives, the Dursleys…" Mateo really didn't want to explain everything that had happened in his life, it was his past and no one held the right to know it apart from his dad. However, if he trusted anyone in this school it was Professor Flitwick, and Professor McGonagall seemed to be trusted by the man. And Mateo felt that there would no escaping the two without a satisfactory explanation as to why he was going around the school with a different name.

So the next hour was filled with him retelling his life, starting with the Dursleys. He decided that it was not worth covering up the truth completely so he ensured they understood that he had had a less than ideal life up to the age of six. Although he left out some of the details about their treatment of him, he ensured that they knew that it was only his accidental magic that saved him. It wasn't just the two professors that noticed how he became more animated and happier chatting about living in multiple countries for the next five years before their trip to join the Avengers. The very short explanation of life in America at Stark Tower with his numerous honourary uncles and aunt, and having godparents was also highly animated and enjoyable for all three of them in comparison to the beginning of the narrative.

Throughout it all Minerva and Filius sat in respectful silence until Mateo was finished and he was looking slightly warily at them. The woman was looking like she was expending a lot of energy keeping herself calm and quiet, her hands were shaking and her body was rigid from the effort. Mateo knew his life hadn't been a brilliant one to start off with but through Bruce's help he had gotten over it and now it was mostly just a fact of life rather than a painful topic to be avoided. Only in stressful situations like with Professor Snape a while ago did any of his old habits resurface. He was surprised that a person he barely knew beyond being one of her pupil's was angry, probably on his behalf rather than at him, and Mateo braced himself for the explosion he knew would be coming.

"I am going to kill Albus," Minerva said first. "I told him that the Dursleys were the worst choice to leave you with but he insisted that you would be safe and it was the best option."

Mateo looked quite surprised by the indirect admission that she had known about his first housing arrangement, but remained quiet as the two professors argued.

"He may not have known how bad the Dursleys were, there was no way he knew they would be abusive. It sounded like they were treating their own son fine," Flitwick tried to placate her.

The Charms teacher was looking just as shocked and angry as his colleague, but he was doing a better job of remaining calm and level headed. He had also had the foresight to vanish the tea set in case of accidents, and Mateo wondered whether that was an act of practice or merely good thinking.

"Which just makes the whole situation worse! Why didn't he ever go check on him?" McGonagall spat, then froze. "Hang on… you left the Dursleys when you were six, just before Christmas?"

"Yes," Mateo said nervously. He knew that the teacher was not likely to turn on him, but to be glared at by an individual that was crackling with barely restrained magic was not a pleasant experience.

"The old goat, he knew that you had gone that year! Remember when he was really distracted that Christmas?" Minerva turned to her co-worker.

"He knew what was going on, he knew and he did nothing to stop it," Filius was horrified.

"I am going to kill him," she said again.

The situation was deteriorating quickly and Mateo could very much see the head of Gryffindor house marching from the room and obliterating the man who pretended to be a benevolent overseer. As much as he wanted to see the senile smile wiped from the man's face Mateo knew that that would only bring more trouble than it was worth as all his secrets would be spilled. He saw McGonagall start to move as if to rise, so he acted.

"If I may interrupt," Mateo said politely and very quickly. "Acting in the heat of the moment is not going to help anyone, what's done is done and right now we need to focus on what will be productive rather than what will be the most rewarding."

"There's no doubt you are in the right house Mateo," Filius chuckled as Minerva forced herself to calm down. "What do you suggest?"

"There is some information that we need to know, that you may be able to help us with, however I do not trust Dumbledore. Would you be willing to come over to America at some point over the holiday to talk further? My father and godfather have a pretty good grasp of what is going on but we could really do with the input of someone from the magical world. I also need to remain hidden for as long as possible so I need you two to act normally around me and treat me as Mateo, no one can know who I am. You two have proven how even mature adults can react, can you imagine what the entire Wizarding populace would be like?" Mateo said ruefully.

"You seem pretty prepared for this eventuality," Professor McGonagall observed as she settled comfortably once more on the sofa. Although the woman seemed to be in control of her magic and her emotions once more, it was very obvious to Mateo and Flitwick that she was actively forcing herself to calm down for their benefit rather than it being her own choice.

"There was always a risk that someone would find out, and I may as well make the best of the situation that it is two people I trust and can help me," Mateo shrugged.

"Well we are honoured that you would trust us with such a big secret, being able to help you is the least we could do considering how badly Albus has let you down. Now perhaps you should be heading back to your dorm? It is rather late but at least you do not have to get up for anything later," Flitwick said.

"It might just be easier to stay up now," Mateo glanced at his watch at saw that it was approaching five in the morning. "I may as well crack on with my Charms revision and head to bed very early tonight. Professors."

With that Mateo stood and gave a respectful nod of his head before slipping out of the door and off to the Ravenclaw common room.

"That boy is far too sane to have survived the life he has had so far," Minerva said as she stared at the door.

"Albus' plan may have failed but I reckon events have spun things for the better. Mateo is certainly going to be a force to be reckoned with," Filius agreed. "Now, I wouldn't mind examining that map in more detail."

The pair turned towards the table and the object, only to learn that the parchment had somehow disappeared. Both of them smiled and Minerva couldn't help but roll her eyes. "He's just as bad as his father."

Flitwick then subtly hinted that she might want to get back to bed before the woman could become too engrossed in her thoughts. Although the enigmatic first year might be able to pull an all-nighter Filius highly doubted that the two of them would be able to function without a few hours sleep. Minerva quickly realised the same and headed back to her quarters via the floo. She changed out of her slightly bedraggled and smoke damaged clothes and attempted to go back to sleep but her mind was working too fast to allow her to drop off quickly.

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If anyone noticed that Mateo seemed even more distracted over the day no one commented on it. The large dark circles around his eyes were impossible to miss, but thankfully no one brought them up either so all he had to focus on was not falling asleep as they revised. He was almost too tired to summon the effort to eat but Hermione and Kevin cajoled him into at least eating a little bit. Dumbledore had returned and was at every meal again however Quirrell was absent, although no one really seemed to care about it. The last few exams were over the next week so lessons were over and everyone had more pressing concerns than an unpopular teacher being absent. As they no longer had lessons with him either not even the Ravenclaws were concerned with the possibility of missing part of their education.

The Friday of that week was the final Quidditch match of the year, and the Ravenclaw team members were feeling rather confident. Gryffindor had won their other two matches, but would have to catch the snitch whilst being over two hundred points up to even have a chance of beating Ravenclaw. The Slytherins were sulking that they were only coming second or third this year, while the Hufflepuffs seemed excited for a tense match and didn't care that their house coming bottom of the league again.

Mateo had argued it out with his family and they were staying at home for this match, he was certain that he wouldn't be playing and so their trip would be a waste. Bruce had been rather insistent but Mateo eventually won and so he sat with his teammates and enjoyed breakfast.

The weather was clear and warm, with a slight breeze and fluffy clouds scudding across the sky. Once the game was started the play was as vicious as any storm as the Lions tried fiercely to gain an early lead. Fred and George were zipping around hitting the bludgers as often as they could intercept them, and Grant was hard pressed to keep the goals covered and dodge the lethal black balls. Thankfully Cho had clocked the threat that was hanging over her teammates and she put her all into catching the snitch. It wasn't a record game, but barely ten minutes later Cho was grinning triumphantly as she held the glittering gold ball aloft.

No one was entirely sure when the partying ended, but they had been going at least for fourteen hours by the time Flitwick arrived and firmly pointed out that they did need to keep a certain level of decorum. He seemed rather reluctant to tell them that though, as it was the first time that Ravenclaw had won the house cup _and_ the Quidditch cup in the same year.

Only Slytherin seemed morose at the leaving feast the next day when the ravens finally emerged from their tower to join in the feast. The lions seemed pretty miffed but were being gracious in their defeat, whilst the badgers were amused by the other two table's behaviour. And it was no secret that all three of the houses were happy to see that the Slytherin winning streak had been broken at last.

Mateo thoroughly enjoyed the feast, especially as his year banded together and joined in communal jokes through the meal. It was surprising to him that he found himself partially wishing that the coming holiday wasn't so long, but seeing as his time would be filled with teaching and games at the tower he knew that it would pass by in an instant.

Overall he was most surprised that he had made many friends that were very close to him. Being on the move so much meant that he had not really had the opportunity to make lasting friendships as a child, and ever since he had left the Dursleys Bruce had always been his best friend. But now Mateo had three strong contenders for the 'best friend' title, and many other regular friends on top of that.

Finally the morning arrived when their trunks were packed, pets put into carrying devices, addresses and numbers swapped, socks discovered, and dormitories emptied. Thankfully the House Elves transported all their stuff down to the train, so all Mateo had to worry about was Garuda, who was sulking in his cage, and his book bag of entertainment for the journey. Neville, Kevin, Stephen, Hermione, Padma, Mandy and Mateo all crammed into a compartment together for the journey and the seven spent the time enjoyably playing exploding snap and eating chocolate frogs. Garuda had been let out of his cage and was contentedly sitting on the luggage rack watching the antics of the children.

By late afternoon the train finally reached London and everyone piled off the carriages. Some of their number had to search for their families, but Mateo was quite lucky in that Thor was taller than pretty much everyone on the platform and acted as a brilliant waypoint. His happiness spiked when he realised that the god was there and that he could catch up with him for the first time in a year.

"Come on Hermione, Kevin, I have a feeling your parents will be with my family," he grinned and wound a path easily through the crush of humans towards the golden haired waypoint.

Mateo was right about his two closest friend's families, but it was a bit of a shock to the trio to see that Padma's parents were also waiting there. However when Mateo could pick out the easy conversation being held between his father and the matriarch he understood why they had stopped there.

" **Greetings again ma'am,"** Mateo said, easily switching into Hindi as he sidled up to Bruce.

" **Ah hello Mateo, it's good to hear that you have been helping Padma with her lessons,"** the woman smiled at him.

" **It has been good fun to teach her, she is very talented,"** Mateo waved off her thanks.

" **Then it is a shame that she wouldn't learn from us. Perhaps she just needed the right incentive,"** Mrs Patil said, and Mateo was slightly confused by the underlying hint in her words.

"So this is how you get to school," a voice interrupted in a polite manner.

"Phil! It is good to see you again," Mateo smiled at the woman who left with the twins, before turning to greet the man. He hadn't seen the man before but assumed that he had been hiding in the crowd, or had just been shielded by Thor's enormous frame. "How do you all get time off to come get me?"

"Things are quiet at the moment so Clint, Natasha, and I aren't required for a couple of days," Phil explained. Mateo wasn't certain but he thought that there was something else going on other than them not being needed. However he didn't bring it up and run the risk of ruining the day.

His conversation with Phil was interrupted as Tony grappled him in a hug and he was quickly shuttled around to greet everyone. He was rather disorientated by the time he was finished and came face to face with an amused but still star struck Kevin. The visual cue helped jog his memory of something.

"Hey Dad and Tony, would it be alright to have some friends over during the holidays?"

"How many friends are you thinking of?" Bruce asked, wary of having the tower filled with immature adults and hyper kids, and the potential recipe for disaster that that created.

"Hermione, Kevin, and Neville," Mateo replied easily.

"Well I'd say yes, but seeing as I am only the voice of authority I'll have to defer to the walking bank account. Tony?" Bruce glanced over at the billionaire.

"Sure thing! I have no worries about there being more of us in the tower, just let me know a date and the jet will be ready," Tony grinned.

"Thanks Tony! And you Dad, of course," Mateo smiled as Kevin made a few stifled squeaks that sounded like ones of excitement.

"I'll send you guys a text when I'm home, and Neville a letter, and we can start sorting things out," Mateo said to the pair before Bruce gently coughed as a hint.

The gathering broke up quickly after that and, although Mateo couldn't help but wave at Draco across the platform, they easily left the station. It was only as they were safely ensconced in Tony's jet that Mateo felt he could finally talk freely. And the first topic that he wanted to cover was not hard to decide.

"Dad," Mateo said quietly.

The subdued tone immediately caught Bruce's attention. He had been flicking through a science journal, expecting Mateo to be wanting to catch up with the goings on of the team, but immediately dropped it and looked at his son encouragingly.

"Some people know, they found out who I am," Mateo explained.

Bruce slipped his glasses off and rubbed his eyes, a sure sign that he was thinking fast to try to cover every possible angle of the problem. "Who are they, how did they find out, and do you trust them?"

"Two teachers, two students… Oh and a centaur. My Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was working with Voldemort to steal something hidden in the school, and I figured it all out. There is a map that shows where everyone is in the school and my figure was labelled with my true name, which is how the two Weasley twins found out. They swore on their magic to keep silent on the matter, so I trust them. The two teachers found out as I had to warn them about Quirrell, and then explain how I knew where he was. However I think it may have been useful, they have promised to help and have agreed to come and discuss the problem I have," Mateo gestured to his forehead. "They don't know what I need to talk to them about, but they will come."

Bruce remained silent for a while, and Mateo shifted nervously. Eventually he sighed and spoke, "We can't undo the past, and like you said this could be advantageous. I'm glad we will be able to meet them and decide whether it is still safe with them knowing about you. When are they coming over?"

"In two days, they will apparate to the roof and I'll go meet them."

"And the centaur?" Bruce asked in exasperation.

"He read it in the stars," Mateo chuckled at the stunned look on his father's face.

Bruce spent a while digesting the news which attracted the attention of the others on the aircraft. Mateo quickly explained the reason for the sombre mood, which caused the others for a short while. However Tony quickly got everyone back on track by getting them all involved in a game of poker.

As none of them knew about his journey into the Forbidden Forest Mateo refrained from mentioning it, especially seeing as they were a dangerous distance from the ground. He vowed that he would tell them someday, just not quite yet.


	35. Chapter 35 - Pooling Resources

**A/N: I told you to keep an eye out! Here you go! I'm churning through chapters at the moment, a vain attempt to keep my sanity in tact as work is as dull as ditch water at the moment. We are launching a new company sales website so guess who the lucky person is that gets to check the codes, prices and descriptions of over 6,000 plants and tools? Ah well, the joy of writing is you can ignore your own reality for an infinitely more interesting reality!**

 **Thanks to everyone for reading this, seeing that you enjoy it means I have an excuse to keep writing!**

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 **Chapter Thirty Five – Pooling Resources**

Being back at the tower for an extended period was bliss to Mateo, as he had the opportunity to participate in any number of activities from checking out the labs to joining in training with Steve. The first day he spent quickly ensuring his and Bruce's living quarters were tidy for their guests tomorrow before joining his father down in the labs. Tony and he had finished their work on the Arc Reactors and now had versions that would run for thirty years powered merely by the Starkanium element Tony had in his chest.

The amount of power that they produced could be devastating in the wrong hands, and seeing as there was one buried in Tony's chest, they had decided not to make the product public just yet. However there was one installed in each of Tony's buildings and they were working on creating a version compatible with the engine of his jet. And Mateo thought he had heard the billionaire talking as if he was considering having the reactor removed, so perhaps global sales could eventually happen.

Bruce's research into the Other Guy had restarted now that he had the facilities to properly monitor the changes he underwent to become his larger self. Mateo had seen the small leather bound journal that he had used to scribble ideas and basic observations as they travelled, but now he was equipped to do more than theorise. Apparently the Avengers were starting to get on quite well with him and the collateral damage caused by 'Big Green' was dwindling. Tony had created special pants for Bruce too that stretched with the transformation, so he ran no risk of being embarrassed when he changed back.

There were blueprints and designs tacked to numerous walls that proved the pair had also upgraded everyone's weaponry even more, and Mateo was 100% certain now that he would never want to get on the bad side of any of them.

Mateo's sleeping pattern was still slightly skewed when he woke up at four in the morning in his room in the tower. The silence was slightly disconcerting, but he forced himself to stay in bed for another couple of hours that he dozed through until he gave up and got dressed. He had missed his normal clothes whilst being at Hogwarts, and he was thankful that Pepper had insisted on buying some extra sets in a larger size, he seemed to have grown over the last year. Clad in a green shirt and brown trousers and brown loafers he moseyed up to the communal kitchen.

It was unlikely that he would find anyone awake at this hour, Steve may be but he often went running before appearing up in the kitchen. So he settled for making tea and watching the sunrise above the skyline with only his thoughts for company, which he found was actually quite pleasant. With every one of the Avengers wanting to spend quality time with him Mateo barely had any time to himself, and he didn't see that changing over the summer.

Eventually the others began to stir and appear, first with his Dad then the three more physical Avengers. Thor made an appearance just as breakfast was pronounced ready, almost as if he had a sixth sense for detecting food. Tony appeared once they were all settled and groggily made a beeline for the coffee.

"So what's the plan with you professors coming to visit?" he asked after he had drained at over half his mug.

"They are probably getting here around ten, I'm going to head up to the roof to meet them as that is the easiest point to apparate to without spying out the place first," Mateo spoke after he had swallowed his mouthful of egg. After Albus' unexpected appearance last summer the Avengers had figured out how the man had done it.

"Who do you think should be present for this chat?" Clint asked next.

"Dad and Tony at least need to be here, they are the ones with the most knowledge that could be helpful. Thor should probably be here too to give whatever input you can on what Loki sensed. I don't have a reason to doubt them but if we end up working with them I know you guys would prefer to get a feel of them before," Mateo said to the two assassins, then paused to think. "You know what? You can all be here if you want, just please don't make a scene or make things more complicated than they need to be."

"We'll just listen in and stay in the background," Steve promised.

"And we'll have a tidy up first, unless we do this on your level," Natasha was not one to consider herself house proud, but she could see the odd piece of popcorn poking out from under the sofas, and coffee stains on the surfaces that could be wiped clean.

"Thanks," Mateo was grateful for their attention to detail and he quickly finished his breakfast.

He wasn't able to settle to much over the next two hours so he when it got closer to the arrival date of the two he headed for the roof. It wasn't too breezy that day, so he sat with his legs on the edge of the ledge and gazed out over the city. Once again he was glad that he did not need glasses as the wind probably could have dislodged them as he sat up here.

After getting bored with looking around the view Mateo slumped back on the, what he had termed it, parapet. With the wind ruffling his hair and the sun warming his face, and one leg slung over the edge he found himself relaxing even though he hadn't consciously been tense. He was in the middle of deciding what kind of animal he would like to be if he was an animagus when a rather loud _pop_ broke the silence.

Standing there in the middle of the roof and gazing around themselves in curiosity were the two magic wielders that Mateo had wanted to see. The tiny mistrustful part of him had been wary of another wizard tagging along, one much more meddlesome than the two he trusted. But again that part of him had been proven wrong and Mateo smiled welcomingly at the teachers.

"Good morning Professors, welcome to America," Mateo said as he walked over to them. "I'm afraid everyone wants to be at our little discussion so prepare for a Spanish Inquisition. They mean well and are genuinely lovely people, they just forget they can be a bit intimidating at times."

"Thanks for the warning," Professor McGonagall said dryly. To her it was a bizarre experience getting a pep talk from someone a sixth of her age, but the sincerity in the child's eyes showed how he honestly believed his warning. After seeing their 'playing' in the school last year Minerva nodded her thanks too and took Mateo's encouragement to heart.

Mateo led the way through the door and down the stairs to the level where everyone was gathered. As he had said, seeing the six highly dangerous adults staring at them was slightly intimidating. Thankfully only Thor, Tony, and Bruce were standing at the sofas waiting for the three whilst Steve, Natasha, and Clint were sitting in the kitchen. Although they were out of the way they were easily within earshot to hear the discussion and give their opinions.

"Professors Flitwick and McGonagall, although I think most of you know my head of house. Thor, you'll have to come to one of my Quidditch matches next year. Professor McGonagall meet Tony Stark, Thor Odinson, Bruce Banner, and the three that are going to sit quietly over there are Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, and Natasha Romanoff," Mateo gestured to each person in turn, and thankfully the person called made some sign of greeting so show who they were. "Can I get you anything before we begin?"

"Perhaps some water might be a good idea if we are going to be discussing a lot," Professor Flitwick suggested.

Mateo nodded and moved to head to the kitchen, however Clint was already standing there with six bottles of water in his arms and a helpful and expectant look on his face. Mateo smiled and let him carry on, and then the archer retreated to his perch on the countertop of the kitchen without any kind of fuss. Mateo did carefully check that all the bottles seemed to still be sealed before anyone reached for theirs. Although he didn't expect anyone to dare pull a prank at such a serious gathering, he wouldn't be surprised if a tainted bottle of water accidentally made it into the mix.

"Filius and I was discussing what would require a meeting as we were heading here this evening, or morning I suppose, and we both came to an agreement," Professor McGonagall started.

"We feel it would be prudent for us to take an Unbreakable Vow to ensure whatever we learn or discuss will remain strictly between us," Professor Flitwick spoke next. "The Unbreakable Vow works in that you literally cannot divulge the information you have been told without dying, we would be completely safe from veritaserum and legillimency. Therefore we would be safe from meddling people."

"Whilst we have been lucky so far in not needing to deny knowledge of you, it would be safest for all concerned if we literally could not talk about you to anyone else," Minerva suggested. "You would need three promises for us to agree to in order to seal the vow."

"Alright, one to not disclose my true identity until such time as I wish to reveal it, two to help with the research we will need to conduct to, third to never discuss what we are doing with anyone outside of this room. Would those be encompassing enough for our situation?" Mateo asked.

Soon the two professors had shown Mateo how to do the Vow and had sworn each other to secrecy. It was clear that although the majority of the room had no idea how magic worked they were reassured by the sentiments behind the act at least. Natasha had stopped staring at the pair hard enough to corrode a hole through their heads, which Mateo took as a good sign. The two robed individuals had never done anything to gain their mistrust, but it was just the habit of the Russian assassin to assume the worst of new people.

"So with that out of the way, what did you want to discuss?" Filius asked as they were seated once more.

"You know my true identity and how I ended up a Banner, but that is probably only half of the story," Mateo said slowly. He had been trying to figure out how to go about explaining what Loki had sensed but had not come to a conclusion.

"Has Mateo explained about the Battle of New York?" Tony asked as he saw the youth struggling.

"Only the basics of the situation and how it lead to you all becoming a team," Professor McGonagall answered.

"Did he explain about Loki?" Tony carried on.

"He's Thor's brother and has a good grasp of magic," Minerva replied.

"When he was being led away from here to a secure location he caught sight of Mateo and stopped. We weren't entirely sure why he was suddenly so interested in the child, he had seen him before. However when Thor went to visit Loki he said that he had sensed something," Tony explained.

"Loki has an excellent grasp of magic well beyond any Seidr, Midgardian magic wielder, has possibly ever had. He can use this to sense things most people wouldn't ever be aware of and apparently it is because of this he discovered something about young Mateo," Thor explained. "My brother requested a meeting with Banner's son as he had felt something during their brief meeting on the flying fortress. I do not believe he was lying when he told us that he felt that there could be a sliver of another being living within the child."

"He said that it was as if part of another's soul was using Mateo as a vessel, it was doing no harm nor growing at all. Whatever it is, it is just there living alongside Mateo's magical core," Bruce recalled the disgraced god's description.

By the way the two on the opposite couch suddenly paled the Avengers could tell that whatever had happened was not good. Mateo unconsciously shuffled closer to Bruce and the man put an arm around his son reassuringly.

"I don't think any of us know the proper term for what happened, but I know for a fact that splitting your soul can only occur through dark magic, _the_ darkest magic. You two would never be able to delve deep enough into dark literature to find out how that happened without attracting some unfavourable attention," Professor McGonagall said shakily. "Even we might not be able to find out what happened."

"So I'm stuck with a piece of Voldemort's soul then?" Mateo said quietly and rather tremulously.

"Have you discovered any negative effects of having it so far?" Filius asked.

"Apart from the scar no," Bruce said with certainty.

"I shall ask my father whether he knows of any way of solving this dilemma and ridding Banner's son of the parasite," Thor offered.

"I highly doubt that there is anything mentioned in the school library but I shall look there, it would be less suspicious for me to do it than a student," Flitwick promised.

Tony had been very patient and quiet through the discussion, but Mateo had seem him impatiently fidgeting. At that moment he lost his battle to remain quiet and unleashed a torrent of questions at the two magic users. Luckily Flitwick and McGonagall were patient and answered as many of his questions as he could. However the number of questions they couldn't answer showed how little they knew on the subject.

"It won't hurt to peruse Albus' personal library either, I shall try to get up to his office and search it without him being there," the female witch decided when Tony sank into a thoughtful silence.

"I can see why you swore us to secrecy before revealing this," Filius said, still shaken from the revelation half an hour ago.

The part-goblin was feeling physically sick after everything that had been revealed to him. His trust was in tatters and he no longer knew who in the world he could trust or believe anymore, for years he had trusted that Albus always knew what was best. He had never known where Harry Potter had gone, nor had it really mattered as the headmaster had insisted he was safe and well. With the revelations they had heard recently Filius felt like a fool for being so naive and gullible, and he hated being made to look like a fool.

A week ago everything had made sense and was orderly, now only the vow he had just committed kept him from confronting the supposed forerunner of light and demanding answers from him. At least he could be content with the knowledge that Mateo's family were prepared to work with them to find the answers they needed.

"It's getting late, you should probably be heading back if you want to get back to the UK in daylight," Natasha interrupted the gathering. She was the only one who had a mental note on the time differences between America and the UK.

There were a number on the couches who were surprised by the woman's announcement but they soon gathered themselves. They had indeed been talking for over three hours and they couldn't risk both professors being discovered missing. The last thing they wanted was for someone to start asking questions, so they would have to be content with what they had covered for now.

"Indeed we should be going, thank you for entrusting us with this information, we shall keep you up to date with anything we find," Filius clapped his hands and slid from the couch.

"Thank you for coming Professors," Mateo stood and gave a tiny bow out of habit.

"Don't practice too hard over the summer, we wouldn't want you getting too bored next term," Filius said with a smile.

"I won't, I may read my books but I'm aiming to learn more Muggle things rather than Wizarding ones," Mateo replied with a grin. "It wouldn't be fair to outcompete everyone just because I live in the better place."

"Whilst I remember, avoid making eye contact with some of the teachers and wizards you don't know," Professor McGonagall instructed, "Professor Snape and Dumbledore are able to read minds using something called Legilimency. Until you can shield your mind with Occlumency then avoid their eyes."

"I didn't know that it was possible to read minds, can many people do it?" Mateo asked, slightly worried about what could have been revealed already.

"Not many can master it, but unfortunately the two of them have. You needn't worry overly about Snape, he learnt it out of necessity and truly respects people's privacy. He'd probably only use it if he suspected you of committing a crime on school grounds. Dumbledore on the other hand I can no longer vouch for, so be careful," McGonagall said darkly. It was obvious how much her opinion of the man had plummeted in the last few days.

Bruce led the two departing Brits to the roof for them to disapparate but was soon back down the stairs, his shoulders spotted with dark marks from the drizzle that had started without their noticing. He was quite surprised that on his return he was met with an awkward silence. Collectively the Avengers had faced pretty much every bizarre life threatening situation and knew how to overcome it. But magical incidences left them all floundering in confusion as there was no way to apply their knowledge to fix the situation. To Mateo it was obvious that the adults around him really didn't like being helpless like they felt they were now.

"I reckon we need a pick-me-up, anyone for a game of laser tag?" Tony asked to the silent room.

It was a rather obviously desperate attempt and lifting morale in the group but Mateo was extremely grateful that the man suggested doing something. Despite the obvious ploy everyone jumped on the idea, apart from Bruce who decided to referee to make the teams even, and soon the numerous guns and sensor jackets were being dug out of the relevant cupboard.

"What is this 'laser tag' that you speak of? Is it some kind of accessory like tattoos?" Thor asked innocently.

So after ten minutes of explanations and demonstrations the god was all clued in as to how the guns and the game worked and they split into teams. Clint and Natasha had instantly been split to even the playing field and were teamed with Thor or Steve, the former still looked a little bemused and the latter apparently was better when aiming with a shield. Tony and Mateo teamed together. The three teams moved out to start on separate floors, leaving Bruce to make himself a cup of tea and watch their antics through the security system that JARVIS fed to the large TV. With all the commotion the scientist quickly found himself being kept company by the ghost of the tower, the little red fuzz ball known as Augustus.

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Mateo's birthday that year was even more spectacular than the year before, mostly because everyone knew each other better and it was easier to interact. Like the year before though Mateo got a heap of gifts that he had no idea he needed or would use much, but was incredibly grateful for nonetheless. Food, cake and laughter kept coming all day and the now twelve year old thoroughly enjoyed the day. It didn't take him long to fall straight back into the pattern of life with the Avengers and soon it didn't feel like he had left at all. However as soon as his birthday was over he asked to start lessons again and was grateful when everyone agreed to help him.

Thor had not been present for any of Mateo's early lessons the summer before so was delighted to head to the gym to watch the youth train. The Avengers had collared the god and made sure that he was welcome to help with the training, so long as he was certain that he would not cause any accidental damage to the child. Thankfully the god hadn't taken it the wrong way and promised to be extremely careful as he was perfectly aware of how he sometimes underestimated his own strength.

He was the one to point out that his fighting techniques wouldn't really suit the child anyway, he relied on his strength and powers whereas Mateo was built for speed and manoeuvrability. However the god decided to attempt to teach the child some Asgardian wrestling moves in case he was ever stuck in hand to hand combat. No one commented when Steve and Clint randomly appeared in the gym during those lessons, seeming coincidentally.

Natasha also went with the theme of physical combat and Mateo became even better acquainted with the mats of the gym as they repeatedly practiced moves. When he eventually mastered the one they were practicing the Russian would move onto the next one so Mateo never spent too long on his feet. To keep his spirits up they practiced Russian at the same time, although it was only when Mateo practiced wrestling with Clint did he ever learn any vulgar words.

By far his favourite exercise-based lessons were with Clint because of how varied the lessons were. The archer helped him improve his agility through hosting games in the air vents, or by using the giant climbing frame that had been built onto a side of the tower. The two were also often found in the archery range improving Mateo's aim and reaction times to targets. Even the range had been hit by Tony's regular bouts of tinkering, and now the targets could be programmed to appear from random locations and from behind cover, instead of just hanging stationary on the lines. Clint never voiced his opinion on the changes but to Mateo it was obvious that he loved the changes and the new challenges it presented.

Tony ensured that everyone knew he was setting aside two hours a day in which Mateo could come and learn about whatever took his fancy in the billionaire's lab-cum-workshop. Considering most people could barely get ten minutes of his attention on a normal day they were surprised by his gesture, and made sure that Mateo was free at the same time so that it was not made in vain. It wasn't, and Tony patiently explained in depth anything that Mateo asked, from how circuit boards worked to the intricacies of hacking a computer system. Once Bruce had to go and retrieve the pair for dinner, four hours after they had disappeared into the labs, and had found them both elbow deep in Tony's Hot Rod as the billionaire showed Mateo how to strip an engine. That lecture carried on for a week and Tony only dropped the topic when Mateo could at least name all the major parts of an engine and knew how to diagnose a fault. The fact that Mateo would also be able to hotwire a car or rebuild an engine from stolen parts went unvoiced, and Bruce ignored that fact.

In complete contrast to pretty much everyone else's lessons Steve took to comparing drawing techniques with Mateo. They also spent a lot of time exploring technology together and either learning how things worked or trawling through videos to better understand modern culture. Tony had walked in on them during a lengthy cat video watching session and had immediately gone to find Augustus to see whether he could replicate the tricks with the red cat. Mateo also took up joining Steve for a short part of his morning run in a way of increasing his stamina beyond dodging blows. However Steve was often away from the tower on vague errands, and sometimes Natasha would go with him. He knew better than to ask what they were doing, but the secrecy did intrigue Mateo.

And at the weekends Mateo largely took a break and spent all day with his father. Unless there were communal plans for food on weekday evenings the two would also cook together, and often their plans would be hijacked by at least one other Avenger so they cooked plenty for others. On their days together the pair would sometimes venture out into the city to visit museums or landmarks, but most often if they left the tower they went via car to remote areas. Both of them had finally fully adjusted to city life so the crush of humanity no longer caused them to panic, but neither argued if the suggestion was made to go for a walk in the countryside.

Like the summer before Mateo was content to let his father continue working seeing as Bruce always made time in the mornings and evenings for him. The fact that the other Avengers were more than happy to do something with him helped ensure he was never bored. And for the first month and a half Mateo happily lost himself in the madness that was life in Avenger Tower, his magic books and wand left abandoned in his room.


	36. Chapter 36 - A Lot Can Happen in a Week

**A/N: Good evening! Three updates in a week, and I reckon I can get a couple out next week too! Have a good weekend!**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirty Six – A Lot Can Happen in a Week**

It was a careless remark about friends made by Clint that made Mateo suddenly very aware that the date arranged between him and his friends was fast approaching. Pretty soon into their discussion about a group holiday they realised they would be limited on where they could meet, unless they camped nearby Hermione's and Kevin's houses were too small for all four of them. After a bit of a stock check on facilities and entertainment the overriding vote had been that they went to Mateo's rather than Neville's for the week. The Pureblood had been quite understanding, and in agreement, that they would likely have more fun at the muggle residence than at an empty and imposing manor house.

The logistics of getting everyone together and over the ocean had taken even more planning and letters or texts. Eventually they had decided to send the jet over again as Hermione and Kevin would have had no experience with portkeys. Neville may have been at a disadvantage, but he lost out to not subjecting the other two to the magical transport option. According to Clint, who was the most vocal on the matter, it was not the nicest experience. Tony muttered about getting a proper fireplace installed somewhere in one of his houses to cut down on air miles. Mateo probably hadn't been supposed to hear that and had felt incredibly guilty until Bruce reassured him that the billionaire really didn't mind them borrowing his jet.

Thankfully Mateo's three friends had known that a trip to America may have been on the cards since the beginning of the holiday, so Kevin had immediately set about getting a passport. They had been unsure whether Neville could get a muggle passport but apparently that was something that the Goblins at Gringotts could arrange easily, for a fee of course. Hermione was the only one of them that had actually been through an airport before for family holidays to France, so Mateo was unsure how the other two would react to the experience.

It had been easiest to arrange for everyone to meet at the Leaky Cauldron as a start point, and Mateo was glad to see that they were the first to arrive. Happy had stayed in America seeing as it was only Bruce and Mateo taking the journey so the usual driver hired by Stark was waiting out front for their arrival. Apparently he was paid plenty to cater to every whim of the billionaire so he hadn't batted an eyelid when the two had disappeared; he merely put it down to not paying attention which of the shops they went to.

Seeing as they had arranged to meet at eleven the father and son had five minutes to kill so they ordered a glass of pumpkin juice each to feel less guilty about using the pub without benefitting the landlord. Tom didn't seem to mind but was happy to chat to them about gossip he had picked up as they sat on the barstools and sipped their drinks. There was a bit of news on a Ministry push to uncover dark artefacts or muggle baiting items, and that there were rumours a few Pureblood families were sweating about the raids that occasionally occurred. However the hottest topic seemed to be some guy who was releasing an autobiography to add to his collection of adventure books covering him defeating various dark creatures. Mateo was unimpressed by what was sounding very much like someone who got either was extremely lucky or was a great story teller. Either way he was unimpressed by the man's bragging and he severely hoped that he wouldn't meet the man in person.

A green flare of flames heralded the arrival of someone through the Floo network and two figures soon materialised and stepped from the flames. One was an imposingly tall woman dressed in a dated but elegant green dress, with a tall black hat that had a vulture mounted on it. Neville stood with one shoulder held in her grip and he looked rather cowed by the woman's presence. Mateo quickly stood and trotted towards the fire, his father following a few paces behind.

"Madam Longbottom thank you very much for allowing Neville to come and stay with me," Mateo said with a quick and small bow from the waist.

"I was disappointed with Neville for not fitting in well with his housemates, although in general the Gryffindors this year seem to not be overly impressive. However I was intrigued by Neville's correspondence about your decision to befriend him and your behaviour through the year. It is rare for a Ravenclaw to be so proactive," the woman said, her voice almost coloured with curiosity.

"The Hat was torn between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw when sorting me, I believe it was only because of my curiosity about the mechanics of a bewitched hat did I end up in Ravenclaw. May I introduce my father? Bruce Banner," Mateo lied easily before quickly changing the subject. He had no idea how many times he may have to explain how he ended up in Ravenclaw, he was just content to see people believe his responses.

"A pleasure to meet you," Bruce offered his hand and Mateo was glad to see that Neville's gran shook it without there being any social faux pas.

"What do you do?" Augusta asked.

"I am a scientific researcher, in the muggle world I try to figure out how things work by inspecting elements of the er, elements," Bruce tried to explain.

"So a bit like someone who would work for the Department of Mysteries?" Neville tried to help Bruce explain. "They work on figuring out how things work."

"Yes that would be what I do. I am also a healer when my associates need assistance," Bruce added.

"Your skills may be required then if you are planning on doing anything active, Neville is not the most coordinated of children," Mateo mentally winced in sympathy as his friend seemed to shrink further in on himself.

Luckily at that moment Hermione and Kevin arrived together with Hermione's parents in tow. Apparently they had arranged between them for her parents to pick Kevin up on the way through to the Leaky Cauldron. At their arrival Augusta removed Neville's bag from her pocket and enlarged it before passing it over to the boy. The two boys quickly excused themselves and Neville happily escaped his gran's grip to go and greet their friends, leaving the adults to talk.

"Don't worry Neville we aren't going to be doing anything dangerous if you don't want to," Mateo said first.

"What have you got planned?" Kevin asked.

"Not much, I wasn't sure what you guys would want to be doing. However Dad brought along a few tablets so that we can plan what you want to do whilst we fly back," Mateo explained.

"Tablets? Are those the medicine pills Kevin described? How are they useful in planning a holiday?" Neville asked with a very confused look on his face.

"Sorry Neville, I mean a different type of tablet. It's like an electronic book that lets you look at anything you want," Mateo outlined as vaguely as possible.

"I'm still not comfortable on this idea of flying," Neville said quietly once he had digested the explanation. It was obvious he was replaying his last experience of being off the ground.

"Planes are completely safe, thousands of them fly across the world every day and none of them crash. Mr Stark's jet is probably even safer than the public planes too as it flies a lot less often," Hermione said reassuringly.

Neville didn't reply but it was obvious he remained sceptical. The adult conversation broke up soon after and Augusta disappeared towards the entrance of Diagon Alley, whilst the other three moved towards the children. Mateo happily led the way out onto the street and to the car waiting across the road for them.

"Was it a good idea to wait on double yellows for us?" Hermione asked.

"Double yellows?" Mateo looked blankly at them.

"The lines by the curb means this a no stopping or parking zone," Kevin pointed to the ground at the described paint.

"Tony's driver wasn't worried about it and to be honest I doubt Tony even cares if he got a fine for it. The driver did say that if he wasn't here he would be driving around the block, that's probably why," Mateo shrugged and gestured for them to drop their bags in the boot.

"It is still surprising you are Muggleborn, you're as clueless as Neville about the simple things. No offence meant Nev," Kevin laughed.

"None taken," Neville said as he inspected the paint.

"I haven't lived in England for the last five years, and any of the time that I have has been spent in a castle. I suppose nomadic wanderings through many countries can be comparable to living solely in the Wizarding World in terms of relevance to British life," Mateo mused.

"What time is the flight due to leave?" Kevin quickly changed the subject before they could get onto a serious debate on the subject.

"We still have a couple of hours to kill, Tony arranged it so that we had plenty of time to get there and get settled before take-off. Seeing as it is Neville and Kevin's first time he didn't want them to not be able to enjoy the experience, and apparently rushing to catch a plane is not fun," Mateo said as they filed into the back of the car.

Mateo ended up sitting in the very back of the car whilst Neville sat between Hermione and Kevin, with Bruce up front next to the driver. The pureblood wizard seemed confused by the vehicle and the seatbelt that Hermione showed him how to use, but once they were moving he enjoyed watching out of the front windscreen and the windows. It was obvious that he had never had a trip to the muggle parts of London so his neighbours spent the trip pointing out important sights and various muggle contraptions.

The adopted Banner was once more grateful for Tony's generosity as they easily strolled through the empty entrance reserved for private flights. Their passports were immediately cleared for their leaving English soil while their bags were sent straight to the plane. Although they could have just immediately gone to the plane Bruce allowed them to mooch through the duty-free sections to fill time and to let them burn off energy. Neville seemed to become a bit overwhelmed by the amount of shops and items for sale, not to mention the sheer number of humans, so Bruce interceded and herded them to the gate after fifteen minutes of shop browsing. When the two English boys saw the plane they both seemed as nervous as each other at the prospect of flying so Mateo made sure that they were distracted by showing them the tablet's Tony had given Bruce.

The trick worked and apart from some nerves on take-off Neville was happily learning the intricacies of wireless technology from Hermione whilst Kevin got Mateo started on Clash of Clans. Once in the air the quartet rearranged themselves around the table and started to explore the possibilities of their trip and wrote down ideas. Bruce kept mostly out of it and only inputted advice or ideas when asked, or if they overlooked something. It was only as Neville tried to use a tablet himself and shorted it that they realised a major problem that they had overlooked.

"How is it you can use these things but I seem to break them?" Neville asked after apologising numerous times.

"I'm not entirely sure, I can only guess that as we grew up with them we subconsciously learnt not to project our magic to ensure we didn't break them. Seeing as you've never come into contact with them before you've not had to be careful with your magic," Mateo suggested, looking to Bruce for a second opinion.

"I am no expert in magic but that makes sense, you haven't broken anything ever since I met you and the only difference between you and Neville is that you've grown up in the muggle world," Bruce agreed after thinking it over. He caught the guilty look Neville had and spoke again, "Don't worry Neville, you all still have the other three tablets and I have mine if we really need another. Tony can get through three in a bad week through various accidents including, and not limited to; crushing, explosions, melting from machines, misplacement, weapon accidents, and until recently coffee spills."

Seeing as Neville still seemed a little unsure about the billionaire's reputation Bruce quickly brought up some footage of the destruction caused in New York last summer, as well as at Stark Industries and the Stark Expo. The final news footage of a house in Malibu being destroyed had Mateo having a private chat with his father. Apparently the Avengers had been split up at the time of Tony's run in with the terrorist, Thor specifically being occupied in London and Bruce being careful to avoid adding to the chaos by getting the Other Guy involved. Even Steve had been through the mill with the Winter Soldier going after him, and they had all felt the impacts of the demise of SHIELD and Fury.

They had unanimously decided to avoid mentioning the danger they had been in to Mateo whilst he had been concentrating on his exams which, although making Mateo feel touched, angered him slightly at being left out. He had felt like there had been something wrong when he had first got back to America but hadn't thought to question it. Seeing as he regarded them all as family Mateo had assumed if something of that magnitude had gone wrong then he would have been told about it.

"They are my extended honorary family too Dad, you can't shut me out when they are threatened," Mateo said quietly. "I may not have had more than one conversation with Fury but I still knew him."

"We didn't want to worry you, it may have been wrong but you couldn't have helped. I did say to the others that you could have coped with Fury's death but they outvoted me," Bruce sighed as he saw the determined anger in his son's face. "Alright in the future we will write and let you know, but you have to swear you will stay at school and continue to work on your studies. It may be difficult to do but it helps us immensely when we know you are safe from any harm we might cause."

"Alright," Mateo nodded and the pair returned to the trio still at the table.

The rest of the flight passed more peacefully as the friends caught up and happily ate the in-flight food for a late lunch. According to Hermione the fare was infinitely better than that provided on conventional airlines, and Mateo silently chuckled at the thought that everything Tony provided was infinitely better than the norm.

Neville and Kevin seemed a little unsure when the plane touched down on American soil but they both handled it very well, and if anyone had noticed how both of their faces had become pale they didn't mention it. They had left London whilst the sun was shining and the temperature was a rather unusual 32oC, and they were welcomed with sunshine and 28oC warmth in New York. A long black limousine waiting on the tarmac a safe distance away from the plane revealed how organised Tony was.

"We get to ride in a limousine?" Kevin asked excitedly.

"Tony only has limos or sports cars I think, so get used to it," Mateo grinned, then caught Neville's eye. "In the Muggle world it is usually rich people that own limos, you can pay to hire one for special occasions but very few people do. However Tony likes to show off and also to ensure people have a good time, hence the limo."

"Will we get to meet him to say thanks?" Hermione asked, conscious of the talk her parents had had about her before she left about being a good guest.

"Undoubtedly we'll bump into him at some point. Although he practically lives in the labs if there is a chance to join in some fun or show off he is there," Bruce sighed pre-emptively for all the exasperation he was likely to experience over the next week.

Happy had been sent to pick them up and had apparently been briefed on Mateo's friends being new to America. As a result they took a winding scenic route through the city to Stark Tower before parking in the underground car park. Mateo happily hugged and thanked the man before his friends grabbed their bags and piled into the lift with him and Bruce.

"JARVIS where is everyone?" Mateo asked.

" _Currently Odinson is not in residence and Mr Rogers is out, from his attire I would deduce his intention was to go running. Agents Barton and Romanoff are in the range whilst Sir is in his laboratory,"_ JARVIS replied.

"JARVIS is an AI computer system Tony built and installed throughout the entire tower, if you get lost or need to find someone then ask him to help. There are parts of the tower that we aren't allowed in but you don't have to worry about accidentally going in there as he can keep the doors locked. Anyway, JARVIS, this is Hermione, Kevin, and Neville," Mateo pointed at each knowing that the AI's camera's would pick up the gesture and link names to faces.

" _Welcome to Stark Tower sirs and miss,"_ the British voice spoke once more before falling silent.

"We have a floor to ourselves but only have one guest room, so we thought Hermione could have that one and if you two are alright with it you could share mine? The beds are huge but Tony also said he would put an airbed on the floor too," said Mateo.

"That's fine with us," Kevin spoke whilst Neville nodded, "Where will you sleep though?"

"The sofa or in Dad's room, I haven't chosen yet," Mateo spoke without shame of admitting he would happily share a bed with his father. He didn't consider himself 'too cool' for his parent, especially considering his father was part of one of the coolest groups on the planet.

"Will we get to meet everyone at some point?" Kevin asked as the lift came to a stop and the doors opened on their level.

"As you heard Thor is elsewhere at the moment but I am sure we will at least bump into the rest of them at some point. If they hear about our plan to go go-karting I think everyone could come along as they love a competition," Mateo said with certainty.

The plan that the father and son had devised had been for Mateo and his friends to mostly stick to the Banner floor out of the way of the grownups and any inappropriate activities that could occur, like drunken shenanigans or disputes that resulted in weapons being drawn. However Tony destroyed that plan as soon as he was done in his lab for the day by immediately gate crashing the gathering in the Banner living room. He insisted that the Avengers were allowed to join in with whatever plans the four had, despite not knowing what they had agreed to do.

Unsurprisingly Tony's boisterous nature seemed to scare the three Hogwarts students into their shells for a while, having never met the man they were slightly overwhelmed. But once Bruce managed to run damage control and calmed the billionaire down slightly the three relaxed a bit. Mateo managed to convince the Stark to organise a party night the next evening so that they could meet all the in-residence Avengers at once. He also subtly suggested hosting a number of games, and Tony left contentedly with the impression it had been his own idea.

"You should have been in Slytherin with that display of manipulation," Kevin chuckled as the lift shut once more.

"Apart from getting eaten alive by my housemates because of my history I think I could have maybe fit in quite well with them," Mateo joined him in laughing.

"I think if you could bring Malfoy here and show him everything he would soon rethink his opinions of muggles," Neville said honestly.

"So all we need to do is knock him out and get Thor to fly him back before he wakes up. Then we just have to keep him calm enough to not blow anything up with his magic to be able to show him everything. If he carries on the way he did this year then I might be tempted," Mateo sighed.

"Is this the boy who stole that ball from you?" Bruce asked from the kitchen. Bruce didn't mean to eavesdrop but he had offered to make drinks for them all and had just overheard their conversation.

"Yes, he generally has a very low opinion of the Muggleborn students, and any Gryffindor… Actually pretty much anyone who isn't in Slytherin has something wrong with them that Malfoy can pick on," Kevin explained.

"After the incident at Madam Malkin's he has a special dislike of me and tries to prove his superiority at every occasion. So far he has yet to succeed," Mateo said before quickly changing the subject.

Bruce didn't pry further into the rivalry that had built up between Mateo and the Malfoy heir, and instead he left the four of them chatting happily in the living room. The time difference hit them quite early in the evening but Mateo managed to get them to stay up until 9pm before allowing them to hit the hay.

He had made a pile of assorted clothes, pyjamas and his toothbrush when showing his friends to their rooms earlier so the Banner child grabbed them as he said goodnight to everyone. Although he could share with his dad Mateo had decided on using the sofa so that Bruce could get more sleep to deal better with their action packed week. He left his clothes in the bathroom just set off the corridor next to the kitchen that he was using to change in before rolling up in a blanket on the sofa and asking JARVIS to get the lights.

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Bruce bit back a groan as he split from the chattering children and headed to the relative peace and quiet of the communal floor two levels above. He couldn't begrudge Mateo the opportunity of showing his friends as much of New York and the surrounding area as possible during their stay, but he was rather worn out by the break neck pace they had maintained over the last two days. It was only because of the Other Guy that he maintained a permanent level of quite decent fitness as he certainly didn't work out at all anymore. However he was still worn out from chasing after four youths.

Speaking of the Other Guy, Bruce had almost been worried about his barriers being worn thin by the crowds they had faced. However Bruce was once again shocked by the unexpected feeling of indulgence the Other Guy had seemed to be experiencing. The man could understand, and had become used to, his darker side being happy indulging Mateo and caring for him. However he would never had expected the green being getting a kick out of making his son's friends happy too. Bruce would _never_ mention it to Tony, but it seemed that the Other Guy had a bit of a mother hen mentality towards children, like Bruce himself. He wondered why it had taken so long to realise that, but after a long think the scientist arrived at the conclusion he had spent so much of their early coexistence ignoring the Other Guy's presence to learn much about his personality. And now that they were working in almost tandem Bruce was shocked to realise that the Other Guy was rather enjoying Bruce getting out and seeing the sights.

So far they had visited a science museum, the zoo, the observatory, various smaller tourist locations in quick succession, and had played crazy golf. The next few days were similarly filled with plans to go to Disney World, go-karting, paintballing, possibly horse riding, surfing, and a tour around the Warner Bros. studios. He loved his child dearly but Bruce had jumped at the opportunity for a chance to sit down in peace whilst the four set to a tournament on one of the gaming consoles. Being out in the open had also worn on his nerves at times as he had seen the flash of sunlight of camera lenses from less than subtle paparazzi members. Thankfully they hadn't been swamped or even approached by the hounds, but Bruce was under no illusion that if they cared to look their photos would be in a couple of magazines.

The scientist gratefully sat on the comfy sofa with a cup of tea and relaxed in the quiet of the empty floor. However it seemed that the entire world was conspiring against him as he had just set the mug down on the glass coffee table and was considering putting a documentary on when the red light started flashing, followed by the calm woman's voice calling for the Avengers to assemble. Bruce let the groan escape his lips this time and heaved himself from the sofa and barrelled down the stairs, knowing it was the quickest route as the other Avengers would be using the lift. He was slightly out of breath by the time he finished descending three flights of stairs but carried on moving until he reached the living room rather than pausing for breath.

"What's happened?" Mateo asked as he saw his dad appear.

"No idea, JARVIS?" Bruce was glad to see that the four hadn't moved to leave the room before he arrived.

" _There are reports of some kind of mutant bears on the Canadian border. Local enforcement organisations have tried to combat the sleuth but have been unsuccessful. Exact numbers are uncertain but the police reports suggest an estimate of over fifty have been sighted together,"_ JARVIS summarised.

"Will the Other Guy be needed?" Bruce asked.

" _Unfortunately I believe so; whatever caused the mutations has resulted in individuals growing to four times their natural size, with an estimated increase of strength to match. The police have reported that firearms seem to have little impact on piercing their hide. Agent Barton's explosive arrows may be of use and Sirs repulsors could potentially burn through enough to make Agent Romanoff's weapons effective. However from the information available I feel that the strength and invulnerability exhibited by the Hulk and would be most useful in this case."_

Bruce sighed and turned his gaze from the ceiling, where it always ended up being aimed when he talked to the AI, to the gathering of youths in front of him. "Right, we will be out for a while it seems. There's food in the fridge and Pepper and Happy will be somewhere in the building if you need an adult, but I'm expecting you to be alright on your own until we return."

"Don't worry about us Dad, we will be quite happy playing games or watching movies. We certainly won't be doing anything stupid just because our adult supervision has had to go off and save the Canadians," Mateo said reassuringly. "Stay safe."

"You know I will," Bruce smiled slightly and quickly headed for the lift.

No one questioned Bruce for an explanation for him being a few minutes late to the quinjet and Clint silently took off once the scientist had buckled himself to a seat. There was not much extra in the way of information to filter through to them during the flight until Tony reached the scene and filled them in. But then as soon as the quinjet reached the action zone Bruce's knowledge of events blurred as he let the Other Guy take over.

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It was the bright sunlight filtering through the open window that awoke the scientist once more after the incident, and he almost buried his head under his pillow to carry on sleeping. However from the amount of sunlight coming through the open window, and the very faint sounds of traffic far below, he knew that it was at least late morning. He didn't like sleeping through the day if he could manage getting up and moving after an incident, so Bruce forced himself to rise and wash before searching for food.

Thankfully he wasn't overly stiff or sore from the previous night's excursion, days of being weary from the change were always took the most out of Bruce's optimism. However his brain was slightly foggy and it took him a while to realise why he was finding it difficult to get out of bed. The cause turned out to be that he was wrapped in a blanket from the quinjet as well as being tangled in his duvet.

With the battle for his freedom over and won Bruce shuffled towards the bathroom and emerged twenty minutes later showered, dressed, and slightly more awake than before. It was only as he spotted the map from the zoo on one of his sideboards near his bedroom door that Bruce remembered that he was supposed to be taking the four youths go-karting today.

However when he searched for them Bruce found that there was no one in the kitchen or living room on their floor, and a quick trip up to the communal level revealed that the four almost-teenagers weren't there either.

"JARVIS, where is Mateo and his friends?" Bruce asked in confusion.

" _Sir and Agent Barton decided to take them to a water park today to allow you time to rest from the fight last night. Mateo asked me to assure you that they were happy to do so and that he and his friends were quite content with the idea."_

Bruce sighed at that as he contemplated just how badly the day could go without a responsible adult around. There was no doubt that if faced with danger both Tony and Clint could quite effectively protect the four from harm. However without a life or death threat the pair could end up being just as irresponsible as any teen. Going to a waterpark was something that Bruce would not have been able to do, there were too many chances for a surprise unleashing the Other Guy. As much as Bruce prided himself on his control recently he did not want to tempt fate by going into chaotic situations, and Mateo hadn't even suggested he tried to. So Bruce was grateful for the pair for taking the kids somewhere he couldn't have gone, but it couldn't override his guilt at having let Mateo down by ruining his plans.

To fill the remaining time until the group returned from the waterpark Bruce reviewed the SHIELD footage of the incident the night before, most notably any that involved the Other Guy's actions. From the amount of time he had been asleep Bruce was unsurprised to see that his alter ego had conducted the majority of the fighting and had taken down over three quarters of the bears, whilst still being reasonably cooperative with the local police and the team.

Eight hours after he had woken up Bruce was alerted to the return of the group by his lab suddenly becoming a lot noisier. He had given up watching video footage and reading reviews and decided to fiddle with some of his personal research whilst he had the privacy and guarantee that Tony wouldn't interrupt. However his window of time had now shut as Tony led the way into the room followed by the archer and four smaller figures.

Everyone's hair was dry, Bruce noticed, so they had had to have stopped on the way back somewhere. He could faintly smell fries and correctly assumed that Tony had fed them on the return journey. All four of the children had bright eyes and excited looks on their faces, a sure testament that they had enjoyed themselves without him. Bruce smiled as his gaze landed on his son, his hair might not have been as long as Hermione's but the girl had obviously run a brush through her hair to tame it. Mateo's was a wild mess from where he had towelled it dry, and the only thing stopping it from sticking upright was that it was too long to defy gravity.

"Hello there sleeping beauty, nice to see you up and about," Tony grinned and slapped the scientist on the back affectionately before claiming his customary spot on the lab bench next to Bruce.

"I've been up for eight hours, I have no idea what time we got back last night but I feel my nap was justified if the footage was accurate," Bruce refused to rise to the bait and turned to the quartet. "Did you enjoy your day?"

"It was pretty amazing, the place was packed but Tony managed to get us a few queue jump tickets which sped up the day," Kevin beamed at the billionaire.

"They don't do that the last time I looked," Bruce muttered under his breath to the man next to him while he had his back turned to save his work.

"But they don't know that," Tony said back quietly before raising his voice again. "Clint obviously won the award for the most amazing dismount from the zip line, but Mateo came pretty close to a double backflip. Even Neville had a couple of goes and he is apparently terrified of heights."

"It's only heights and broomsticks," Neville clarified quietly.

"I can't stand being underground, we all have our own fears," Bruce reassured him.

"So the plan for tomorrow is go-karting and the arcade followed by a tower gathering with Chinese take-out and gaming," Tony checked.

"What was planned for tonight?" Bruce looked at the group questioningly.

"Well we were going to watch more films to continue Neville's education, but Clint offered to take us down the shooting range," Mateo said slowly.

"They mentioned seeing which of them was the best shot and I thought it couldn't hurt for them to have lessons off an Avenger. That way Mateo won't outstrip them in every sport," Clint defended himself.

"If they get injured then you will be the one explaining to the relevant guardian how it happened," Bruce warned.

"Relax big man, Hawkeye has it sorted," Tony interjected.

"I'm amazed you managed an entire day out without a responsible adult," Bruce voiced what he had been thinking all day.

"What are you on about? We had Mateo to keep us in line," Tony called back before he disappeared out of the door with the others.

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The rest of the holiday passed quite peacefully, at least in terms of catastrophes that required the Avengers to fix. For Mateo and his friends it was less peaceful as they crammed the holiday with trips and games to the point they reliably passed out each evening. Bruce quite enjoyed the couple of hours he had each morning and evening to himself, it gave him a chance to relax before the frenzy of activity each day.

Kevin had managed to take a load of photos with him and various Avengers, mostly the four resident men, and was content that he had sufficient evidence to prove to his neighbourhood friends that he hadn't been making up his claim. Thor had been absent most of the week, having wanted to go and visit Jane Foster, and Natasha seemed to be a little wary of children.

Hermione was overjoyed that her first holiday with friends had been so much fun and that she had learned quite a bit of muggle science from Bruce's lab and from the museums and zoos. Neville had come out of his shell even more and had even been caught cracking jokes a couple of times. The fact that his attention to detail and care meant that he was quite good at archery and go-karting only helped to give him confidence in himself.

But as much as they all enjoyed the holiday Mateo didn't think he was the only one content to see it end when it did. They had done as much as possible with the time they had, and he was happy to relax and wave his friends off home again. It wouldn't be long until they would see each other again anyway, as they had only two weeks until they would meet again in Diagon Alley.


	37. Chapter 37 - Diagon Alley Reunion

**A/N: You know I am glad I created a completely separate email account for my Fanfiction account. I logged into it recently and it has 6000 emails waiting to be read! I would have gotten rather impatient with having to delete that many off my main email!**

 **Anyway, thanks to all reviews, favourites, and follows, and generally to anyone who gave my story a chance and enjoys it! As always I'm grateful for seeing the stats spiral up for this story, I probably would have given up long ago without your support. And to show my appreciation here is an early update. And a quick warning, I'm away on Friday (having a mini reunion with my university friends) so I will not be posting then. I shall try to update again before then!**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirty Seven – Diagon Alley Reunion**

Whilst Kevin had been in America he had offered for Mateo to sleep over his for a few days before they returned to Hogwarts so that Bruce only had to make one journey to England in a fortnight. Mateo had checked with Bruce and Kevin's parents before accepting the offer, so they planned their trip to buy their second year supplies to occur close to the end of the holidays. With trunk and Garuda's cage in tow (the owl itself had been quite content with the plan for him to fly straight to Hogwarts) Mateo, Bruce, and Tony headed towards the dark pub once more.

Mateo was wearing the new clothes that he had received for his birthday a month ago and even Tony had commented how smart he looked in the leather jacket Clint and Natasha had bought for him. It was pretty obviously not magical attire but this time around Mateo was less concerned about sticking out. A few students nodded at him when they made eye contact and Mateo was surprised by how many smiled at him.

"It seems your prowess on a broom has made you quite well known already," Tony said as he observed another group of older students recognise the boy by his side.

"I helped beat Slytherin and apparently that is something that hasn't been done in many years, I'm not surprised with their reactions even if I do think it is pointless," Mateo sighed.

They had very few shops that they needed to visit this year in comparison to their first shopping excursion in the alley, which was a blessing as the alley seemed to be heaving that day. There was a small queue at Gringotts for their services, and thankfully once Mateo had money again the majority of the shops seemed to be relatively quiet compared to earlier. As arranged they met Kevin at the robe shop as both boys had grown an inch or so over the last year, and despite their best attempts their old clothes did show signs of wear.

It was in the clothing shop that they discovered why the alley was so busy. Gilderoy Lockhart, the extravagant man who was releasing an autobiography of his daring exploits, was holding a book signing in Flourish and Blotts. Mateo looked at his list of books needed for the year and groaned.

"What's the betting he is our teacher this year?"

"At least he has some evidence that he is good at defence, hopefully he can teach it as well as he can tell a story," Kevin replied hopefully from his own stool.

"It's good your core textbook likely holds all the spells you'll learn in that subject, as none of Lockhart's books describes how to cast a single spell," Tony noticed everyone looking at him. "What?"

"Why exactly did you read them?" Bruce sighed and rubbed his eyes.

"I thought they were fiction and thought it would be interesting to see what the Wizards make up in the way of myths seeing as the largest segment of muggle fiction is apparently real. To be honest I am not entirely sure they are not fabricated, the lack of detail makes it sound more like a bedtime story than an actual account of events."

"Please don't ask him whether they are faked to his face, you can find out some details about him from his autobiography then set JARVIS on researching him," Mateo didn't want to incur the wrath of a teacher before term began if the man was to be going to Hogwarts.

Thankfully Tony did take it as a challenge and was eager to meet the man to get started. The gaggle of people around the bookstore had grown since they had arrived and the six of them were forced to join the back of the line in order to buy the books required for the year. Once they were inside the shop Tony disappeared off into the furthest corners of the shop in search of anything that could be relevant to their private research. To pass the time Mateo and Kevin chatted about various games they had played in the last two weeks since they had last met. Bruce struck up a conversation with Nikki and Tim about dealing with a magical child whilst being a muggle, and the three of them actually had quite a fruitful discussion.

Tony just reappeared in time for them to be near the front of the line with a couple of books tucked surreptitiously under his arm. Mateo and Kevin had noticed the Weasley family were a few paces in front of them in the line, but they had been unsuccessful in trying to attract the attention of the twins. The two redheads seemed engrossed in a whispered conversation that only they were privy to. Mateo's interest was piqued by the sight, the twins looked to really be quite serious about what they were talking about.

An overly enthusiastic reporter was pushing through the crowd taking photos of the impeccably dressed blonde seated at the table. Each time he clicked the button of his camera a puff of smoke erupted from the lamp filament, and the room was slowly becoming filled with haze. Mateo had no idea why the photographer needed to take more than five photos of the man at the table, but during the time they were there he seemed to have taken at least twenty. In his frenzy to get shots from every angle the photographer ended up knocking a few of the Weasley's aside and caused Ron to grumble rather loudly.

"Good Lord, is that Harry Potter?" Gilderoy asked loudly. His attention had been drawn from the person getting their book signed to the crowd by Ron's slightly colourful language. It was just Mateo's luck to be in a clear line of sight for the celebrity to see through the crowd.

His question had everyone looking excitedly around the room, and while a few adults clocked and gazed at Mateo curiously the assembled students didn't even look twice at him. However the reporter grabbed his arm and yanked him forwards so that he was flung into the waiting arms of the glittering man.

"Smile Harry, together you and I will make the front page," Gilderoy clamped an arm around Mateo and gave him no room to move.

"I'm not Harry Potter!" Mateo protested loudly as the photographer went into a frenzy.

"Unless you want to meet a very unpleasant end you will release my son at _once_ , sir," Bruce strode forward angrily.

The scientist was uncaring of any injury he caused by shoving the photographer to one side whilst relieving the man of his camera. He didn't care about what kind of scene he was creating as he marched past towards the man who had trapped his child.

He was, however, very aware of how the Other Guy was snarling in the back of his mind, and how his other side's anger fed into his own to the point he was almost turning green. With enhanced strength he crushed the camera in one hand and was satisfied with the sounds of destruction that accompanied the act. He ignored the spluttering reporter and stomped up to Lockhart, and had to make a conscious effort to not break the celebrity's arm as he wrenched it off of Mateo.

His son gladly stepped away from the man and moved to stand slightly behind and to the side of his father and matched the glare the greying-haired figure was giving the cowering man. Lockhart didn't know what colour eye's Bruce normally had, he was just concerned by the fact he was pinned in place by two matching sets of glaring green eyes. Being face to face with the two males gave the writer an opportunity to see every similarity, which provided a good distraction to the way his spine felt like it was turning to jelly.

"Ah yes I see the resemblance. Please accept my apologies but we are all anxious to see the return of the Boy-Who-Lived, and your son looks remarkably like him," Gilderoy babbled in an attempt to pacify the pair.

"Apart from the fact I don't wear glasses. Oh, and the fact I have no scar, which is a pretty large give-away that I am not the same person," Mateo said in an irritated tone.

"Indeed, again I apologise and I shall pick up your bill in recompense," Gilderoy hurriedly offered.

"Two sets of your books and these then," Tony slammed the two books on the desk and glared at the shop owner until the relevant stacks of books were handed over to Mateo and Kevin.

Bruce had disappeared to the outside of the shop to calm down, Mateo hadn't failed to notice the green in his father's eyes, and Tony was not far behind him with Kevin's parents in tow. Mateo had stopped briefly to say hi to the twins, and by association the rest of the Weasley clan, before moving to head outside. However someone stopped him.

"Bet you loved that Mudblood, nothing like getting your name in a Wizarding paper to improve your social standing," Malfoy taunted from his spot on the stairs.

"Not really, I am quite content to be happy in my own world without trying to force my way into yours. See you at school Draco," Mateo said pleasantly and tried to leave.

"Why don't you introduce me to your friend Draco," a man, obviously Draco's father, said silkily as he appeared behind Mateo and effectively blocked his exit of the shop.

"Father this is Kevin Entwhistle and Mateo Banner, both muggle born Ravenclaws," Draco's tone was thick with distain.

"Ah you are the one that caused the false alarm, I can see why the idiot Lockhart made the mistake," the elder Malfoy said as he scrutinised the pair.

"I am nothing like what you seem to think Harry Potter is like, apart from genetics dictating that I should apparently look like him," Mateo said firmly.

"You should learn to watch your tongue when addressing those who are infinitely more important than you are," the man hissed angrily.

"I am watching it fine, I am merely stating facts. My tone may not be as respectful as what you are used to but, as your son points out, I am a mudblood. So I expect you are going to ignore my existence as soon as this conversation is over, and I shall assist with that. See you at school Draco, pleasure to meet you Mr Malfoy," Mateo nodded and bowed to the two white haired males before nudging and incredulous Kevin. "Come on."

The two purebloods let the two leave and were staring incredulously after them long after the door to Flourish and Blotts had closed once more. It was only as the Weasley's approached that Lucius regained his senses after being outwitted by the Mudblood child. In order to reassert himself he turned and started to rip apart the Weasley family's reputation. He may have gained a bloody nose for his trouble but he also managed to slip a specific item into one of their cauldrons and cleared his family of any danger associated with it.

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Tony and Bruce had left Mateo with Kevin and his parents soon after the incident in the book shop. The drive back to their house took just over an hour thanks to the traffic, but soon enough they were pulling into a rather orderly neighbourhood compiled of rows of very uniform houses. Mateo gazed around him curiously as a small part of his brain was telling him that this place was familiar to him as they drove through. They kept driving and reached the other side of the suburban housing estate where the houses were a little less rigidly maintained and more personal. Tim pulled the car onto the drive of a house with a deep blue door and a riot of colourful flowers growing in the flowerbed out front.

A small pink scooter was abandoned on the front lawn whilst a skateboard was propped against the wall by the door. Mateo had forgotten that Kevin had mentioned having other siblings, and now he was being dragged into the building by his brunette friend to go find them.

"Molly! Rich! Mateo's here!" Kevin shouted loudly.

"Kevin they can hear you even if you speak loudly, shouting is not necessary," Nikki sighed.

"Sorry mum," Kevin said contritely, however further discussion was cut off by the sounds of feet upstairs.

Mateo was then subjected to an evening of playing with Molly, who turned out to be seven and twice as animated as Mateo had been at that age. At the same time he chatted with Rich, an eighteen year old with a gift for computers, about Stark Industries. Kevin seemed a little quiet but didn't seem to resent Mateo talking to his siblings.

Not having had any siblings Mateo was still surprised at how similar genetics could make relatives. All three Entwhistle children had bright blue eyes and the same shade of brown hair. Whilst Kevin's always was cut short enough to spike up, Rich's was cut brutally short and Molly's was almost at her waist. The bone structure of their faces variated depending on which parent they inherited it from, but there was no denying they were related.

Nikki had put a stop to the questioning at dinner time and Mateo had insisted on helping with the dishes afterwards. The time difference meant that he was still relatively alert when bedtime rolled around at 10pm but Mateo was content to head up to Kevin's room with him.

"Sorry it isn't as magnificent as your room in New York," Kevin said as Mateo settled down on an airbed on the floor.

"That's all Tony's impression of how we should live, Dad and I were quite content living in two room houses in India. It took me all of last summer to get used to my room in the tower, so this is much more to my liking," Mateo said hurriedly.

"I still can't believe you used to live in lots of different countries, you've lost your accent and you barely seem fazed by anything," Kevin yawned.

"Apart from double yellow lines," Mateo reminded his friend who chuckled at the memory.

The next day Kevin had apparently arranged for his closet friends to meet at the local park so that he could say goodbye before term started again. The fact that Mateo was also going to be there so that he could show off his friend was just an added bonus. Previously Mateo had been confused by Kevin's wish to flaunt his kind of famous friend, but after meeting his siblings Kevin's behaviour was more justified.

It was obvious that their parents loved all three of them, however Molly was special as she was the only girl, whilst Rich was the oldest and was starting out in the world. Although Kevin was special because of his magic he couldn't show it and so for the next few years he probably felt like he was going to not be as special as his siblings. Being separated for nine months of the year did not help matters as he didn't get any of the attention his siblings received.

The gathering of youths in the park was almost hilarious for Mateo, they were all obviously friends and enjoyed each other's company but they were incredibly awkward about playing. So once introductions had been made and about ten minutes of awkward standing around had happened Mateo decided to change that.

"How about we play a game?" Mateo asked.

"Nah, kiddie parks are lame for games," a boy called Phil drawled in an attempt to act mature.

"Not the game I'm thinking of," Mateo hinted.

"What is it then?" Mark asked, he was much less worried about his reputation.

"Tag with a twist, you are only it if the previous person manages to rugby tackle you. Safe places include the monkey bars and roundabout," Mateo pointed out.

"Is it supposed to work out like we saw the Avengers playing?" Kevin asked.

"Perhaps not as rough as the ground is too hard to do that today, but yes. Trust me it's quite fun."

"I'm in!" Kevin called as he legged it.

"I'll give you two a five second head start," Mateo offered.

As promised the four of them had quite a bit of fun running around and feeding off the adrenaline and endorphin rush. Half an hour later they had burnt off quite a lot of energy and they called a truce to flop lazily on the grass near the monkey bars. Mateo had ended up being chased to them just before the game ended and he was still hanging upside down from the bars.

"Stop showing off, you're head's turning red," Kevin called.

Mateo merely smiled at that and easily swung the right way up before sliding back to the ground. He flopped down next to the three and listened in to their conversations about past games they had played at school. Apart from living in the same area it turned out the three had gone to primary school together and had a lot of stories about their past exploits.

"It looks like the runts have attempted to take over our park again boys," a voice snapped them out of their reverie and had Mateo sitting upright very quickly.

A short distance away from them stood five other boys who were probably the same age as Mateo, Kevin, and his friends. Where they differed was the standing group were intentionally trying to look more threatening than they actually were.

The one who had spoken was standing in the middle of the group and seemed to be the leader, despite not having much of an intelligent look about him. However what he lacked in brains he made up for in bulk, and Mateo guessed that he could fit three of him in the clothes that the boy wore. The bulk boy was dressed in a tracksuit set and it seemed that his friends had copied him. However the other four seemed to not be as spoilt as the leader, as his looked barely worn.

"We weren't, this park is free for everyone to use," Mark said nervously.

"Not if we say it is ours," the smallest boy of the other group said in an annoying nasally voice.

"Very true Piers, and we say that this park is ours. So beat it unless you want us to beat you," the leader said imperiously.

Mateo had barely paid attention to the two groups as they talked, he was more concerned on fighting back a panic attack. It was just his luck for his best friend to live within five streets of his old relatives, and that the Dursleys hadn't thought about leaving in the last few years. Mateo wasn't sure if he wanted to throw up or pass out, but either way he was having to focus on remaining calm and not showing his emotions.

Dudley had grown taller and wider since Mateo had last seen him, but the spoilt arrogant personality was the same. It didn't surprise the runaway that the Dursley child hadn't changed at all, nothing of the Dursleys probably had. What did surprise him was the fact that Dudley didn't recognise him at all. Mateo had remembered that his cousin had always been quite thick, but to not see the resemblance took the idiocy to a whole new level.

' _Unless I really have changed that much?'_ Mateo thought. Bruce had repeatedly commented on how tall he had grown, and how much healthier he looked. Maybe actually looking well fed, coupled with the lack of a scar and glasses, was enough to disguise him from his relatives?

It was only because Kevin and his friends began to fearfully stand and back away that Mateo was pulled back to reality. He didn't want to cause a scene or get anyone in to trouble, however he couldn't just slink away. Memories of his treatment at the Dursley's hands flashed through his mind and his resolve solidified into a plan.

He would never comment on how the three boys were willing to leave, it would be a bad move for them to try to fight Dudley's gang. However Mateo was not going to roll over and let the spoilt brat continue his reign of terror. Dudley's confidence would be his demise, and Mateo's unassuming appearance would help him beat his cousin.

"If you seriously hold this park in such regard then we shall leave you to it, but I hardly see why a patch of dirt is worth arguing over," he said.

"It's part of our turf and so you have to obey our rules. No one else is allowed here, so beat it runt," another of the group said.

"Technically the government own all recreational sites, would you go and beat them up retain rights over your 'turf'?" Mateo questioned.

"Stop talking and get lost, or I'll let Gordon and Malcolm use you for practice you ponce," Dudley spoke once more.

Mateo was surprised that Dudley knew the meaning of a word that was actually quite intelligent. He let the insult wash over him, he was wearing smarter clothes than everyone else there and it didn't surprise Dudley picked up on that first. Instead of reacting and commenting on the insult Mateo turned Dudley's last sentence back on him.

"Ah the benevolent leader allows his dogs of their leashes every now and then then?" Mateo spat out. "Tell you what, _Dudley_ , how about you and I settle this between us? Whoever wins get authority over the park and the losers get to leave in peace and won't come back. Leave the mutts on their leash and show us what you can do."

"You think you can take me?" Dudley guffawed. "Alright runt you're on."

"Are you mad?" Mark hissed as Mateo moved forwards to face his opponent.

"You guys just watch," Kevin was grinning and held the other two back. He hadn't wanted for Mateo to get into a fight but he was confident that his friend would easily handle the situation.

Unsurprisingly Dudley attempted to catch Mateo unawares by swinging a punch at his face before the fight had properly started. Back when Mateo had been Harry and had lived not far from here such a move would have probably resulted in a broken nose. However Mateo had had much more self-defence training than Harry had ever had, and he easily dodged the punch. For the next few minutes he merely circled Dudley and dodged the blows that were aimed at his face and stomach while the Dursley heir became even more enraged.

It was quite amusing from Mateo's perspective, he had plenty of memories of Dudley hitting him despite his attempts to avoid the blows. Now he was effortlessly almost dancing around Dudley, and his cousin was getting more worn out with each swing. Mateo almost didn't want the fight to end, he was not in any discomfort and watching Dudley lumber around was quite comical. And the fact that his cousin still hadn't recognised anything about him just added to the hilarity. However eventually Dudley got sick of being made to work to hit someone and glared past his red chubby cheeks at his unknown opponent.

"Fight back you coward!" he shouted in frustration.

"As you wish," Mateo said coolly.

In no time at all he had punched Dudley in the chest once and the stomach twice. He laid the boy out with a fierce punch to the nose quickly followed by an uppercut to the jaw. The boy went down and stayed down as he whimpered and clutched his nose.

"Anyone else want to try?" Mateo turned to face the other four boys.

For a few seconds the four remaining gang members stared dumbly at Mateo, but then Gordon and Malcom did move forward. However Mateo rushed towards them and landed a couple of punches to both of them before they had much chance to react. As a result the two retreated back to their friends and the four looked unhappily at the floor.

"As promised, you may leave freely. If I hear you've been having a go at my friends then you can be sure I will be back to carry on what I've started," Mateo growled and waved a hand to let them go.

The four promptly took off and left Dudley lying on the grass clutching his broken nose. Mateo sighed and turned to the mass on the floor, and almost laughed as Dudley whimpered and tried to wriggle away. He gestured for the other three to give them space, and thankfully Kevin challenged his two friends to see who could stand being on the roundabout the longest.

As satisfying as it was seeing his cousin in the position he himself had been in so many times before, Mateo was overcome with a tiny bit of guilt. He decided that a small conciliatory gesture was needed and he walked over to the fallen boy. However Dudley was not happy with his movement and tried to wriggle away on his back whilst clutching a hand to his bleeding nose.

"Oh stop being an idiot _Duddykins_ , I just need to check your nose is straight before you go," Mateo sighed.

"What did you call me?" Dudley mumbled from behind his hand clamped against his nose.

"I had hoped your idiocy was just a product of being a child but it seems that it is something that is going to be with you for the rest of your life. Did you end up getting that red monster truck in the end?" Mateo asked.

Dudley just gaped at him as Mateo pulled his hand away from his face and inspected his nose. "Harry?"

"Not anymore, after I ran away I changed my name and it's Mateo now, your cousin is long dead to me. If it helps you can also act like I am not your cousin and that the person that bested you in a fight is just a visitor to the area. No one's going to believe you that the tiny Harry Potter came back merely to beat you up before leaving again, and I am certain your parents will tell you off for mentioning the _freak_ again. I bet the house has been peaceful without me darkening your doorstep," Mateo rambled. "Alright the bone looks straight and the bleeding has stopped already. Just say you were mucking around with your friends and didn't dodge quick enough."

Dudley was still gaping at Mateo as if he had seen a ghost, and Mateo guessed that it probably was quite a similar analogy for his cousin. After a short while Dudley did get up but continued to stare at his cousin. "What happened to you? Dad was really angry when that weirdo appeared at Christmas and pointed out you had gone."

"Typical Dumbledore, always too late," Mateo muttered. "I ran away, found someone who actually wanted to look after me and travelled the world. I've moved on and Harry Potter is dead to me now, I hope you will have the same view."

"Dad said we could never mention you again, so you kind of have been dead since you left," Dudley admitted.

"Then everything has worked out well. Sorry about the nose by the way," Mateo apologised. "I'm not likely to see you again, I'm never coming back here if I can help it. So, have a good life Dudley."

Dudley nodded to his cousin and started walking off before Mateo called him to stop. "You should take up boxing, seriously you have a good swing and it will give you someone to beat up who is deserving of you anger. But I _will_ be back to stop you if I hear you've started picking on innocent people in the street again."

Dudley disappeared quite quickly after that, and Kevin dragged Mateo off home again just in case Dursley and his gang decided to return for a second round. Kevin repeatedly mentioned how awesome Mateo had looked taking Dudley out, but Mateo just shrugged and said that it hadn't been hard. He never mentioned how he had actually beaten up his cousin and just made sure Kevin kept occupied so he never mentioned it in front of his family.


	38. Chapter 38 - Second Year

**A/N: So go easy on me for this chapter guys, I'm not a poet! Don't judge my attempt to write the Sorting Hat song too harshly. Anyway, I am off to have a mini uni reunion this weekend so this is the usual Friday update a day early.**

 **Thanks for reading my story, I hope you enjoy it! Have a good weekend!**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirty Eight – Second Year**

There had to be some kind of enchantment on the Hogwarts Express, Mateo decided, as there was not a single upset face on the platform when they arrived on September the first. Admittedly there were a few worried faces of the new first years, but that was to be expected. Kevin and Mateo both wrestled their trunks onto the train (Mateo didn't feel he could really justify attempting to use magic just in case he was traced in England) before the former hopped out again to embrace his parents. Mateo had already thanked them profusely before getting on the train so he gave his friend some space and set off instead to find their other friends.

He found Neville just arriving from the direction of the apparition point, toad and trunk clenched tightly in separate hands. With the pureblood directed towards their compartment, and some quick pleasantries exchanged with his grandmother, Mateo carried on searching for Hermione. The two bumped into each other near the muggle entrance to the platform and she happily bid her parents goodbye and let Mateo help her carry her trunk to their compartment. Mateo briefly stopped by the Patil parents in a selfish desire to speak Hindi again, before they carried on to their carriage and rejoined Neville and Kevin on the train. They spotted Ron heading down the carriage with Dean and Seamus in tow but other than that it seemed that the rest of the carriage was populated with older students.

Their journey seemed to pass a lot slower than the only other time they had travelled by train to school, probably because they had no nerves or excitement to warp their sense of timing. It was undeniable that they still felt excited to be returning to a magic school, but there was much less fear and curiosity of the unknown than the first time round.

Although they spent a bit of time playing exploding snap they mostly ended up chatting, and Kevin didn't take much urging to retell the story of Mateo's run in with Lockhart. Both Neville and Hermione had seen how careful Bruce was to not get riled up so for him to be obviously angry left the two of them surprised. Hermione showed her Ravenclaw side again by expressing how glad the Hulk hadn't appeared and trashed the book shop.

It seemed that they were going to be able to have a peaceful journey, and the trolley lady had been and gone, until they started getting a string of visitors. Kevin had been in the middle of describing Mateo's 'annihilation' of Dudley when the doors of their carriage swung open.

"Do our ears deceive us?"

"Is little Mateo becoming a rebel?"

"Surely not brother mine."

"I'm afraid we might be right, brother mine."

"Hello to you two too," Mateo sighed and scooted over on his seat so that Fred and George could sit down.

"Lucius Malfoy seemed very miffed when he tried to insult our family after talking to you in Flourish and Blotts," Fred declared to the compartment.

"Sorry about that," Mateo winced, he knew how unpleasant it was to be belittled by others.

"Think nothing of it, Dad lamped him and took him down a peg or two. Draco was looking incredibly worried too which was almost the best part," George laughed.

"It seems like you are starting to gain a reputation as being a defender of the underdogs and bane of the Pureblood ethos," Fred revealed.

"You're pulling my leg," Mateo chuckled.

"Not at all little Raven, you've gained the attention of the school at least with your befriending of one Wizarding house, and your spectacular way of alienating the other. We've heard nothing but good words about you on our journey up the train, although we didn't talk to any Slytherins so we may not have an accurate representation of everyone's opinion," Fred shrugged.

"Give it enough time and you could probably have three quarters of the school at your back, your own little army!" George laughed.

"Apart from Oliver Wood, our captain, he is still rather sore over your spectacular win last year," Fred said conspiratorially.

"Although Professor McGonagall didn't seem too upset, I think she was happy that anyone other than Slytherin won last year."

"Was I right in thinking that Gilderoy Lockhart announced that he would be our Defence professor this year? Dad left and we followed before we could hear his speech," Mateo quickly changed the subject away from armies.

"Yep the insufferable git made it sound like we would be honoured, but we looked at his books and they really don't teach you much beyond how to dress like him," Fred muttered darkly.

"Perhaps he is going for a more practical approach?" Hermione tried to defend him.

"If he turns out to actually be a good teacher then we will take back everything we have said."

"And we will go hug Malfoy," Fred finished.

Hermione glared lightly at the pair whilst the rest of them dissolved into chuckles at the mental image. "You're not being very respectful of him."

"The man almost wet himself when facing Mateo's Dad, what would he do if he faced that troll that got in last Halloween? Even Neville is probably braver than Lockhart is," George scoffed.

Hermione didn't reply but continued to glare slightly at the twins. Sensing the precariousness of their position the two soon after said farewell and disappeared off to find other people to talk to.

After that they were visited by a few other people, mostly Quidditch team members who were curious to find out whether Mateo would be playing that year. The boy in question politely replied to them all that he would try out but his position was not guaranteed. Most seemed to take that as confirmation that he would be playing anyway, and although the Ravenclaws seemed happy with the answer the Gryffindors were less enthused.

Eventually the sky darkened and the train slowed to a halt in the very remote train station. The group had changed into their robes when the sun had started setting and now they queued with all the other students to leave the carriages. When the doors were finally opened the rush out onto the platform almost had a few of the smaller students being pushed off their feet. Mateo was luckily solidly built enough to withstand the force, however Kevin and Neville were pushed forward slightly but managed to remain upright. The American student grabbed a tiny pale boy next to him and helped ensure that the first year got off safely.

"Someone is a little eager to get going," Mateo chuckled. "We waited last year till most people had gotten off."

"Sorry but this is all so exciting! I can do magic and we're going to be living in a castle and there are lots of magical animals and-," the boy gabbled until Mateo cut him off.

"Woah there, yes it is an amazing place to be but you've got a very exciting and long evening ahead of you. Now you need to go that way down the platform until you meet a huge man called Hagrid, he will guide you and the rest of the first years to the boats while the rest of us go this way," Mateo turned the curly haired boy around and pointed him in the right direction.

"Thanks! See you there!" the boy practically ran off leaving a very amused Mateo behind.

"Recruiting another pathetic one of your kind to your numbers there, Mudblood?"

Mateo's good mood instantly vaporised and he sighed before replying, "Quite possibly Draco, he seemed a little too clueless and excited to be a Halfblood or Pureblood. But then appearances can be deceiving can't they?"

Without waiting for a reply he walked away from the small knot of Slytherins and found his own friends in the queue for the Thestral drawn carriages. By the time they reached the castle Mateo had calmed himself down and was contentedly listening to the conversations going on around him. Padma and Mandy had joined them in their carriage and everyone was catching up with their summer adventures. They didn't split up until they reached the Great Hall, where Neville had to leave to head to his own table.

Mateo was not the only one of the group biting back a groan as they spotted the blonde haired man dressed in buttercup yellow robes beaming madly at the sea of students in front of him. Professor Snape was obviously _very_ unhappy with the seating arrangements as he sulked next to the glittering new professor, while Professors Flitwick and Sprout seemed very happy to be on the other side of Dumbledore from the man. It seemed that the main topic of conversation amongst the students was either how awesome it was to have the man as their new teacher, or how terrible the year was going to be _because_ the man was their new teacher.

Before long the conversations were cut off as Professor McGonagall strode in at the front of the new first years. Mateo wasn't sure if he was the only student to spot her pained look as she noticed who her neighbour was going to be for the feast. He probably was as the look was quickly smothered as she returned to her professional façade. Mateo spotted the curly haired boy he had talked to earlier right at the front of the group practically running to keep up with Professor McGonagall. It was fun to be on this side of the hall watching the first years take in the grand architecture and the enchanted ceiling before their gaze fell on the Sorting Hat.

After spending two summers with JARVIS in the tower Mateo was more comfortable with feeling gratitude towards inanimate objects, in the sense he was grateful for the actions of a _hat._ The magical world was still extremely confusing, but Mateo was starting to feel reasonably comfortable that there couldn't be much more that could surprise him. And then the Hat started to sing.

So here we are once more  
Another start of term  
And so I shall discover who you are  
To put you where you'd best learn

You new students amongst us  
Your path has just begun  
So try me on and without a fuss  
I'll see where you fit in

Is loyalty the trait I shall see?  
To be a happy Hufflepuff  
Where the goal is unity  
Above less trivial stuff

But what about a quest for knowing?  
Then Ravenclaw is your home  
A thirst for knowledge keeps them going  
Long after others have left them alone

Perhaps bravery is what's in store?  
Even if you don't feel it yet  
They will be one for Gryffindor  
You'll find your calling soon I bet

If not these three then perhaps cunning is within?  
No less important than the other three  
Is the misunderstood house of Slytherin  
Perhaps that's where you'll be

A thousand years this school has stood  
A beacon for all to see  
But not all inside is good  
As the four split and became three

I may sort you into a house for you to reside  
But there is strength in unity  
The boundaries are only what you decide  
Destroy them to be set free!

The song seemed to surprise quite a few in the hall and the applause was slow to start and less than enthusiastic once it reached full swing. Dumbledore was looking thoughtfully at the fabric accessory, but there was little time for him to act as Professor McGonagall started the sorting of the standing students. Mateo wasn't expecting to recognise any names so he watched the first years slowly sit on the rickety wooden stool and soon disappear off to their houses. The boy he had helped turned out to be called Colin and was soon trotting happily to Gryffindor. Ginny Weasley was the only other person Mateo recognised, and unsurprisingly went to the same table as the rest of her family.

Thankfully Dumbledore didn't delay the feast and everyone soon was tucking into the amazing feast cooked by the House Elves below. Mateo had meant to go down there last year to see them and perhaps thank them but he had never gotten around to it, so he made a resolution to do that this year. The entertainment of watching the first years carried on as they tried to contemplate the wide range of choice in food and the second years finally realised why they had gotten so much attention in the first night but then were not so focussed on the rest of the year.

Four of the ten new Ravenclaws turned out to be muggle born, or muggle raised with one magical parent. As such Mateo did have to answer a few questions about his Dad and the Avengers but luckily he managed to get the other six students asking their year mates about the superhero group so he could return to his food.

Eventually Dumbledore stood to give out the customary start of term announcements, mostly reminders not to go into the Forbidden Forest, that duelling and joke items were banned, and to introduce the newest member of staff. The applause that followed Lockhart's introduction seemed to be mostly carried by the double x chromosome part of the student body which seemed to meet with the flamboyant man's approval.

Once they all were allowed to leave and Mateo carefully followed the rest of his house up to their dormitory. As they had progressed a year they had been moved into the dormitory above their old one, but the layout was exactly the same in terms of bed arrangements and furnishings. Garuda was waiting on his chest and Mateo happily petted the owl in greeting before taking him to a window to set him out to hunt. They caught up more with Terry, Michael, Anthony, and Stephen before they all collapsed into their beds.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Surprisingly Mateo was not up much earlier than the rest of his year mates, he distinctly remembered being awake a good hour before everyone else last year. However he was still up and dressed before anyone else stirred, so Mateo retained his place as the earliest riser. Anthony and Stephen emerged next and set out for breakfast soon after leaving Mateo sitting on his bed waiting for the other three. Eventually they were ready and headed down together and ended up gathering a few slightly lost first years that had done quite well but had gotten confused.

Mateo's good mood evaporated when he received their timetable for the year from Professor Flitwick and saw that they had Professor Lockhart first, for two whole hours. Looking through the weeks it appeared that they had double the amount of defence lessons timetabled than they had had next year. The only upside was that all their lessons were timetabled with the Gryffindor house this year rather than only half of them being with Neville's house.

"Hey Cho, is this normal?" Mateo asked the girl who was sitting close by and showed her his timetable of Defence lessons.

"We didn't have that many Defence lessons in second year, now you mention it we have more booked in too," Cho scoured her own piece of parchment.

"Well this is shaping up to be a good year," Mateo muttered and dug into his breakfast.

If he was to suffer for two hours with a guy that potentially hated him Mateo decided that he may as well be full and content. So once he cleared his plate he snagged some extra fruit and milk to consume before he headed back to their dormitory to pack his book bag. Hermione was just arriving as he was about to leave the tower so he waited for her to catch up. Then the pair ended up waiting for Kevin who was running a bit late, before they all headed to the relevant classroom. The room was a different one to the one Quirrell had chosen so it took them a few seconds to find the right door, but eventually they were queuing outside the right one. The rest of their house were either there or arrived shortly afterwards, and the Gryffindors started to arrive shortly after them.

When the door opened of its own accord they filed in quietly and Mateo found himself being pushed into a seat in the middle of the class by Kevin before Neville sat next to him. Kevin and Hermione paired up as was their custom and sat together to their right, whilst Terry and Michael sat to their left. The chairs in front of them were filled by female Gryffindors, whilst their male housemates took the empty seats behind. The few stragglers, this time it was Ron and his two friends, arrived just in time before the door at the top of the stairs at the front of the class opened. Predictably Professor Lockhart emerged in a similar but not the same set of gold robes and started a spiel about himself whilst carefully ensuring that all his pictures around the room were well placed.

Mateo stopped paying attention after the first few words but managed to remain slightly alert looking. Neville was in almost the same predicament but was awake enough to nudge Mateo when the adult looked like he was coming back to an important point.

Professor Lockhart started by conducting a register, but he didn't get very far before the inevitable awkward reunion occurred.

"Mateo Banner?" Lockhart called.

"Here sir," Mateo replied dutifully.

The man looked up with a charming smile on his face, however it faltered when they made eye contact. Mateo refused to look or feel guilty for his father frightening the man in the book shop seeing as it had been his own fault for grabbing him. Thankfully Gilderoy quickly moved on and returned his attention to bewitching the female population rather than attempting to talk over the event with Mateo.

By the time the adult had finished his introduction to himself and had done the register they had already wasted the first twenty minutes of the lesson. Mateo was already starting to drift off into thoughts about more interesting things. He was surprised at how short his attention span had become again, but the summer holidays had been filled with so much interesting lessons and activities that merely sitting and listening to someone drone on about themselves couldn't compare.

Being handed a quiz on the books that had been set as compulsory reading material provided a slight distraction from the monotony, until Mateo realised it was basically a test on how well he had remembered details about Gilderoy Lockhart. Not once did it ask how he dealt with a particular beast, or even the latin names for any of said dark creatures, which Mateo felt was pretty basic information to find out at the start of personal research. However Mateo played along and filled out or guessed the answers to the questions before returning to his thoughts. It didn't take him long to start doodling on the fresh roll of parchment he had pulled out in the vague hopes that he would actually need to make notes about something.

"Cornish Pixies?" Seamus' laughter jolted Mateo out of his haze.

"Freshly caught Cornish Pixies! Don't let appearances fool you, these guys can be devilishly tricky blighters. Let's see what you make of them!" and with that little warning Gilderoy opened the cage.

Mateo was fully awake then as the room was filled with shouts of surprise and yelps of pain and terror as the little blue beings shot out and started causing havoc. In an attempt to reduce the number of people running around in panic Mateo pushed Neville under the desk and motioned for Kevin to do the same if he was not going to attempt to fight back.

It was that slight pause in concentration that allowed three of the pixies to sneak up behind Mateo and grabbed the collar of his cloak. He was not the only one to be surprised at how strong they were as he was lifted into the air. Without being able to see them to accurately cast a spell to stop them Mateo was left trying to dislodge them as they flew him higher. He just managed to backhand one off of his collar when another two joined the flight and succeeded in hooking his cloak over the edge of the chandelier.

As embarrassing as his position was Mateo had an unparalleled view of the moment that one of the pixies stole Lockhart's wand. Any respect Mateo had left for the man evaporated in that instant and he rolled his eyes in resignation. Thankfully the room wasn't completely full of incompetent people.

" _Immobulus!_ " two voices shouted at the same time.

Mateo and Hermione grinned at each other as their spells both left their wands at the same time and hit different targets. Hermione's was surprisingly accurate and hit a pixie straight between the wings and caused all of its brethren to halt in their flight.

"You're a bit of a poor shot there Mateo," Kevin called as he reappeared from under the desk.

"I saw one going to pull on his tie so I thought it would be beneficial to stop him. It moved at the last minute and so my spell missed, also my aim was a little off seeing as this thing isn't exactly stationary," Mateo shrugged as he swung slightly from the chandelier.

"How are we going to get you down?" Neville asked.

"Simple, can you lot clear the space under me?" Mateo asked.

Once his request had been followed he carefully slid out of his robe and fell the five metres to the floor. He was extremely careful to tuck and roll properly so that he didn't break any bones from the fall. It was the work of a minute to levitate his cloak down from the chandelier and thankfully it did not require fixing, he would have been disgruntled for it to be damaged in his first week back. After all the pixies were snagged out of the air and placed back in the cage Mateo turned to the professor at the front of the class.

" _Finite incantatum,_ " he muttered to release the man. "Sorry professor, my aim was a little off there."

"It's quite alright, you and Miss Granger did a sterling job of exhibiting the correct way to deal with the pixies. I believe ten points to Ravenclaw is in order."

Professor Lockhart blustered around the room a little examining the damage done to the windows and his portraits. "I think that is enough excitement for one day. As a treat I'll let you go early, with only a little bit of homework. A foot on Cornish Pixies and ways to deal with them shall suffice, have a good afternoon!"

Mateo happily scurried around to grab his books off the floor in order to leave as soon as possible. He was a little disgruntled to see that the Pixies had ripped a few pages out of _Gadding with Ghouls_ but he didn't overly care. Soon the four of them were out of the door and almost fleeing down the corridor.

"Are you still going to try to defend him as a good teacher?" Mateo said in jest to Hermione who merely sighed and ignored him.


	39. Chapter 39 - Puddles and Play

**A/N: Hey guys! I've had a great weekend, meeting up with my old friends from Uni was great! We didn't do much, but we ate and drank and laughed, which I really needed. It's my birthday today, and I've had fun mooching through a bookshop (I had to be VERY restrained) and got a take-away with my family.**

 **Oh, I joined Pottermore and I got Ravenclaw House! To be honest I have no idea what else Pottermore is used for, but I'm glad I got Ravenclaw. To be honest I was aiming for Slytherin but Ravenclaw is my close second favourite house.**

 **Thanks for all the views and reviews/favourites/follows. You guys rock!**

* * *

 **Chapter Thirty Nine – Puddles and Play**

The second years were glad to see that the differences between their first year of education and their second were not that major. The work was more difficult and there was a tiny increase in homework quantities, but overall there was no cause for concern. At least in comparison to the OWL and NEWT students that seemed to already be looking tired and stressed after only two weeks of being at the castle.

Professor Snape seemed a little more vindictive than in the previous year, which confused the still quite young students. However when a sixth year Ravenclaw student explained that he had wanted the Defence position for the last ten years they quickly realised that the Potions master was as unimpressed and displeased with the newest professor as the students were. Once they were aware of that fact the second year Ravenclaws started to notice the quite well hidden glares and contemptuous looks that the Potions Master shot the Defence professor.

Lockhart seemed oblivious to the growing lack of respect amongst the students and had ploughed into his teaching job with enthusiasm. However, there were few practical lessons after the disastrous pixie incident and most lessons became more akin to drama lessons as he acted out his daring exploits, with some unwilling student as the dark creature. Thankfully Mateo seemed to miss being chosen and was able to subtly read through another book whilst the flamboyant man pranced around. At least they were covering a lot of theory on dark creatures, but once again their practical knowledge was already being neglected.

The Quidditch try-outs had been held on the second weekend of term, and no one was surprised when Mateo was declared team seeker, with Cho as reserve. Mateo had sought her out afterwards to check that there were no hard feelings and was glad when Cho explained that she had known he would be first seeker ever since Mateo had played against Slytherin.

The biggest surprise amongst all the Houses was when it was discovered that Draco had made the Slytherin Quidditch team. Although it was common consensus that the second year could quite easily be better than the previous seeker, it was more likely that the sleek new Nimbus 2013s that every team member rode that had swayed the decision. Draco was looking the smuggest that anyone had ever seen once it became widely known of his position, but he still failed to get a rise out of Mateo when they occasionally interacted.

Mateo had planned ahead and had bought Hermione a birthday gift whilst still at home, so on the 19th he happily presented her with the wrapped gift. The rest of the house had clubbed together and had bought her a few books, but Mateo had gone for a silver necklace with a sapphire teardrop pendant that he had found in a small jewellery shop near the tower. Luckily not being able to spend his allowance for nine months of the year meant that he was easily able to purchase it. He had yet to see her take it off.

It had been slightly annoying that as soon as Colin Creevey had learnt who Mateo was the first year had made it his mission to follow him around as often as he could. Apparently the Avengers was a topic that was only slightly less interesting as living in a magical castle and learning magic, but above absolutely everything else that occurred in their free time. After the first year had gate-crashed their breakfast on the first three days the rest of the Ravenclaws ended up ensuring Mateo was sat in the middle of the group so that Creevey did not come and sit next to him. It was a unanimous decision and one that Mateo appreciated immensely, not only because it saved him an earache but also because his friends acted for no reason than simply to help him out.

Neville seemed to have not suffered from spending the holidays mostly alone with his grandmother which Mateo was glad about. Apparently he had spent the majority of it in the Longbottom Manor greenhouses growing a variety of plants which kept him away from the judgemental gaze of his guardian.

Mateo wanted to know what had happened to his parents, but it was something he would never bring up with his friend so he kept his questions to himself. Considering their ages it was not impossible that his parents had been killed before Neville had turned one and before he had defeated Voldemort. And Mateo knew how touchy pretty much everyone was about the war, let alone those who had lost people.

Draco's competency was put to the test during the first match of the year, so he didn't have that much time to train. Mateo was sure that none of the previous matches had so many people watching the seekers so closely from the very start. Even the commentator Lee Jordan (a friend of the Weasley twins, unsurprisingly) was egging on the Gryffindor beaters to hit a certain seeker. Unfortunately it seemed that even though the new brooms gave the Slytherin players an edge on speed Draco was also a half decent seeker, as was proven by him spotting the snitch first and managing to outmanoeuvre the Gryffindor seeker. Whilst the majority of three houses erupted into groans, one quarter were cheering themselves hoarse and a very small percentage of not-green clad students remained silent. Quite a few of the neutral individuals were made up by the Quidditch teams that were not currently playing as they digested the new plays and challenges presented by the faster brooms.

"That is hardly fair on everyone else is it?" Kevin said unhappily as the Slytherin team completed their victory lap gleefully.

"What can we do, there is no rule against funding teams and Draco was better than their last seeker," Mateo shrugged.

"Owl your godfather and ask him to by everyone else Nimbus 2013s?" Anthony chipped in.

Pretty much every student within earshot of that remark laughed along with the second years, Mateo included, and the mood of the house was slightly better as they filed from the stands. It was just their luck to be leaving at the same time as the Slytherins, and Mateo was surprised at how vulgarly some of them tried to taunt the usually indifferent house. What was more surprising was that a few vaguely ominous threats were shouted at Mateo from the seventh year snakes who seemed determined to leave with their house winning the Quidditch cup.

"My liking of this sport has dropped dramatically," Hermione said as they finally reached the Great Hall and sat down for lunch.

"You're not the only one," Mateo replied honestly as they started serving themselves food.

As he was due to send a letter to his dad Mateo ended up quickly adding a few lines about the Slytherin team's new gift, just as a note of gossip. Kevin had gotten an owl for his birthday last year, a rather sleek and slightly mischievous Tawny Owl called Sid, so he tagged along to the Owlery and the two owls soared out of the tower together.

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As Halloween rolled around again Mateo was suddenly struck by a realisation: he had not been alone at a single point ever since the last Quidditch game. There was always at least one other team member walking with him from the pitch to the common room after every practice, and suddenly a lot of people were needing to owl a letter to their relatives. Back in America he had managed to catch Clint trying to sneak up on him on a few occasions, so he felt rather foolish when he realised that he had been chaperoned for nearing a month.

"Is there a conspiracy that I should be aware of?" he started conversationally one evening as the majority of their year sat together finishing a particularly tricky Transfiguration essay.

"Are you referring to the obvious fact that the Weasley twins are up to something that most likely involves Professor Lockhart and a particularly creative prank?" Terry asked absentmindedly as he read through his work.

"I was more pointing out the fact that the entire house seems determined to not let me be on my own. Have I done something for you all to think that I cannot be trusted to not trip over and hospitalise myself?" Mateo said slightly offended by the notion.

"Roger asked us to make sure you weren't left alone, he heard of the threats the Slytherins had shouted towards you after the last match and he is determined to make sure they don't have the chance to carry them out," Hermione said honestly.

"I can defend myself you know, and what is another second year going to do to alleviate the threat? No offence guys," Mateo added quickly.

"It might not be the most intimidating thing if a seventh year decides to have a go at two second years but hopefully it would dissuade some people. At the least we can leg it and come find someone who could stop them," Michael shrugged.

"I'd rather you guys didn't endanger yourselves just because another house is afraid of some competition," he sighed and slumped back in his chair, unconscious of the fact he had started to rub his nose.

"You look just like your Dad when he is trying not to flip out at Tony," Kevin chuckled.

"Well you guys probably are as aggravating as Tony, you really shouldn't have agreed to this just out of some sense of loyalty!" Mateo snapped back.

"Woah, chill out there. We accepted because we are your friends and we couldn't just leave you to be cornered and pulverised by older students," Anthony said reprovingly.

What was most annoying Mateo was the fact that although he would never win a magical duel against a seventh year there was no way they would be able to hit him. It might be frowned upon to resort to fist fights but he knew he would be able to lay out pretty much anyone who tried to attack him. The only type of exercise any student seemed to partake in was walking to classes or Quidditch. Physical fighting was something Mateo would definitely beast most students in. Mateo sighed again and looked up, "sorry, but Roger is only being paranoid. I am completely safe."

As if to prove the point Halloween came along perfectly normally and Mateo was fairly confident that there would be no rampaging troll to throw a spanner in the works. Almost as if to ensure there was no repeat last year all the Ravenclaw second years spent the entire day with Mateo, even walking him to and from every meal and the common room. When it came to the evening feast he was wedged in the middle of the second years, to the amusement of the Weasley twins.

"Are they worried you have planned something more spectacular this year?" Fred called over.

"I think they are, fancy trying to convince them that I haven't?" Mateo almost begged.

"Of course he hasn't!" George parroted back, "although we can't say we didn't see a particularly large cage of Cornish Pixies being placed carefully in the entrance hall."

"I've learnt from our first experience with them!" Mateo replied.

It wasn't just the twins and the second year Ravenclaws who were left chuckling at that, it had become school legend of how pathetically Professor Lockhart had reacted to the maelstrom he had caused. As usual the man remained unaware of the hilarity his actions had sparked as he sat up on the staff table looking happily around at everyone.

It seemed that Professor Snape had managed to escape the defence professor and has stolen Flitwick's seat to the left of Dumbledore. In retaliation of this the part-goblin had taken Professor McGonagall's seat, who had taken Sprout's spot so she was forced to sit on the other side of the headmaster's chair to where she normally sat. This placed her directly to the left of Gilderoy, and if the uncharacteristic glares she was shooting Flitwick and Snape was anything to go by she was not impressed with the arrangement.

The feast was as sumptuous as the last Halloween feast, although perhaps a little better as it was not interrupted halfway through by an uninvited guest. It was also slightly less impressive for people like Mateo and Hermione who were not overly fond of sweets. But the company, fuelled by the wild edge of magic swirling through the air and the extra sugar, was infinitely more interesting than usual so no one present was truly unhappy that evening.

As promised Mateo remained out of trouble for the evening and was happily walking alongside his housemates back to their tower at the end of the feast. At least he was happy until the mass of students halted abruptly. There was a stunned silence before the dozen or so students in front of them started to whisper furiously between each other. Without needing to confer Hermione, Mateo, Kevin and the other second years all attempted to edge closer to whatever had caused the disturbance.

They were on the second floor of the castle, and Mateo believed that they were near some of the girl's bathrooms. When he noticed the puddles on the floor he knew he was right, although why the bathroom was flooded he had no idea.

The next thing he noticed was the words written on the wall, and with a horrified jolt he realised that it was written in blood. Finally he couldn't help but notice the cat hung from a torch bracket next to the message. The whole situation was horrifying and rather ominous, and seemed to have had the desired effect of freezing everyone in their place. Mateo however was rather concerned for the cat, which he realised was Mrs Norris. Even with the one major run in he had had with the feline last year, Mateo would never think of hurting the beast, and he doubted that many students would. The twins would have had the greatest reason for killing the cat, but they weren't sadistic enough.

The act would have been incredibly spiteful though as it was obvious she was the only thing that Filch really cared for, so Mateo edged forward to check on the poor animal. He managed to gently wind his way through the crowd before bravely approaching the message and the cat.

Hesitantly he put a hand on its fur and was not surprised to find it cold. However he had had quite a bit of experience with dead animals and Mrs Norris did not feel dead-cold, more like she had stopped generating excess heat. The sound of more approaching feet had him melting back into the crowd of ravens who were giving him odd looks.

"'Enemies of the heir?' You're next Mudblood!" Draco's gleeful voice cut through the silence.

Mateo didn't really have much to say to that, and thankfully he was saved by the appearance of Professor McGonagall who shooed everyone back to their dormitories. Ron and his friends, who had apparently arrived at the scene first, were asked to stay behind and Mateo was glad it wasn't him. The Ravenclaw students left without much argument, although it seemed like the lions and snakes were much less cooperative in leaving the scene.

"Why were you bothered about checking Mrs Norris?" a seventh year asked as soon as they were safely ensconced in their common room once more.

"I was just checking whether she was dead or not. I don't think she is," Mateo informed them.

"Does it really matter?" someone else asked.

"Possibly, if she was dead then obviously the person who did it means business. But seeing as I think she isn't means that either the person behind the act is either really bad at murder or hasn't fully committed to the idea. I'm really hoping it's the last option as otherwise we have a murderer in the school," Mateo said sombrely.

It was with that rather worrying thought that the majority of the house broke up and headed for bed. But Mateo was pretty sure he wasn't the only one who stayed up late thinking or writing to their parents.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

After Halloween it wasn't just Mateo that was being tailed everywhere, pretty much every young student ended up going places with a friend or housemate just in case. Even the third years had taken to travelling in groups to deter an attack from the unknown, unseen threat that had managed to kill the happy easy-going mood in the castle in the space of an hour.

Neville was sticking with his Ravenclaw friends as much as possible since the incident and for once the Gryffindor students were not bothered by his partial defection. As Draco had pointed out, if anyone was going to be targeted then the likelihood was going to be the Muggleborn students or the squibs. It was not a secret that Neville was not the most gifted student with magic, so for him to stick with three Muggleborns was alright with the rest of his house.

Mateo however surprised the rest of his house by being pretty relaxed about the whole situation. Of course none of them knew that he was technically a half-blood and therefore probably safe from any kind of Muggleborn purging that may have been initiated. If the attacks were magically determined then there was a good chance he wouldn't even register to whoever or whatever was out to get people. If it was a human with a grudge then they would get a nasty surprise as Mateo would not go down without a fight.

So he encouraged his friends to practice their offensive and defensive spells when possible, and thankfully the Ravenclaw Prefects did not object to them practicing in the common room so long as they were supervised. Hermione took a little convincing to put her efforts into practice rather than burying her nose in a book to try to figure out what had attacked Mrs Norris. But through gentle persuasion she was soon picking up her wand and joining in.

Thankfully Tony's sixth sense of seeming to know when he was needed had kicked in, and a week after the Halloween attack there was an absolute explosion of owls during the morning post. The cause soon became apparent as twenty one Eurasian Eagle Owls soared through the window, all bearing identical parcels, and alighted on various carvings and beams of the Great Hall. A twenty second owl, smaller and jet black in colouring with orange eyes, fluttered down with a letter to Professor McGonagall.

Every set of eyes were on her as she opened the letter and read the contents. It was only as she finished and looked up at Mateo did he fully realise the likelihood of what was going on. He stayed silent and carried on eating his toast until the professor stood up.

"We have just been given an extremely generous gift," Professor McGonagall announced to the hall, "So if every Quidditch team member in Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff would please stand up."

The twenty one students did as asked and soon found an owl flying towards them with their burdens. Mateo wasn't the only one who was worrying how they were going to hold a 4Kg owl and the long box, but thankfully the owls let go of the wrappings and each box dropped neatly into the arms of each team member.

"Mateo, do you think Tony…?" Kevin said in an awed voice.

The Ravenclaw seeker didn't reply but merely set about ripping the brown paper off the box before opening it and pulling the broom out. It was indeed a _Nimbus 2013_ , although it seemed to vary from the Slytherin's brooms in that it had a slight bluish tinge to the end of the twigs. He looked up and noticed that the same was visible on all the brooms on his table, and the same was visible on the lion owned brooms except the tint was red not blue.

"Our generous benefactor said that he wished that each team could be given equal opportunities for the Quidditch cup, and so decided to even the playing field. As a result the brooms are property of the house team rather than individual players, so that future house teams are equally matched for future games," Professor McGonagall explained to the room before sitting down and tucking the note into a pocket.

"Your godfather is amazing!" Roger said gleefully.

"Have you seen Draco's face?" Neville said quietly.

Pretty much every Ravenclaw within earshot turned around to look at the blonde pureblood, and Mateo was not surprised to see astonishment and fury battling for dominance on his features. Even one of that year's brooms was quite a significant costly investment, so for the elder Malfoy to buy seven was quite a pricey bribe to get his son into the team. It probably helped that flashing his wealth around also rubbed his status in the faces of less fortunate Wizarding families, so the ego boost further benefitted the senior Malfoy. Mateo didn't really have much of a grasp on the economics of the Wizarding World, but the cost of seven brooms was probably about the equivalent of at least two years wages for a Malfoy, and probably seven to ten year's wages for those like the Weasley family. For Tony Stark to casually _give_ twenty one brooms away to each of the three house teams simply to 'even the field' stamped Malfoy's magnanimous gesture into the dirt.

"Does anyone fancy a casual practice session today?" Roger asked, and he was quickly followed by the rest of the team to go grab their Quidditch gear.

It seemed that the Ravenclaw team were not the only ones to have the thought though, and the team had just kicked off to have a fly around on the brooms when seven more people carrying brooms and dressed in red were seen coming down the lawn from the castle. The Gryffindors just arrived at the pitch when the badgers were spotted heading out of the castle. In a courteous gesture Roger landed and the rest of the team followed so that they could discuss the matter of pitch use without shouting at each other.

"Well this is rather awkward," Roger started.

"I'll say," Wood replied. "How do we go about sorting this out then?"

"We could just have a friendly match?" Randolph suggested.

"It would be difficult to organise a three way match," Roger pointed out then elaborated at the Gryffindor's expressions, "We saw the Hufflepuffs heading out of the castle before we landed."

"Well we forgo the regular point scoring and just have a bit of a free for all in terms of chasers and keepers. We only use one set of goals and each team has to loop all the way round the other set and back before they are allowed to score. Beaters and seekers play as normal?" Mateo suggested.

"That would likely be mental…"

"We like it!" the twins announced in their usual tandem way of speaking.

"The bludgers are likely to get confused by their being so many players out at once," Wood pointed out. "So beaters go careful. If this doesn't work out then we play a normal game and rotate every ten minutes or so, the reserves can keep tabs of score and time."

So once the badgers had caught up they voted on the gameplay and twenty one players took to the air and formal play went out of the window as each team just had fun trying out the new brooms and playing around. Mateo ended up racing the other two seekers around the pitch in a speed game of snitch hunting, whilst the beaters had ended up playing an odd game of pass the bludgers between the six of them. The keepers were chatting and lazily alternating position in front of the hoops as the quaffle and gaggle of chasers approached, but not one of the three were too concerned with focussing on defending too much. The main reason being one house could barely get halfway to the goals before another team stole the quaffle.

It seemed that everyone was careful to not use their new game plans in the free-for-all game but as it was a friendly game and no one was really keeping score there wasn't many who were bothered. By the time they all landed an hour later, most players red faced and eye shining with exhilaration, there was little team animosity and all of them happily wandered back to the castle together. But Mateo couldn't help feel that while the three houses had possibly become closer through Tony's gesture, it had also driven the fourth further away in resentment. Even though pretty much every Slytherin spent the next week glaring at any student of another house few seemed to care. Mateo, however, couldn't shake the feeling that someday in the future they would come to regret the radical shift in opinions amongst the Slytherin housemates.


	40. Chapter 40 - Whispers in the Dark

**Chapter Forty – Whispers in the Dark**

Mateo was glad that by the end of the session everyone was completely tired and everyone drifted out of the changing rooms as they were changed. Seeing as the brooms had been a roaring success Mateo wanted to owl Tony as soon as possible, so instead of lingering near the Great Hall he headed straight to the dormitory and grabbed his writing equipment. He had been distracted by a few Ravenclaws insisting on asking him to send on their thanks, and by the time he had finished it was getting close to 6pm. So he hurriedly finished off the letter and slipped out to Owlery to find Garuda.

He had just sent his owl powering out into the dark and was entering the castle once more when he heard something. It sounded like a rasping hiss that came from further up the hallway. Intrigued, Mateo padded after the sound as it seemed to travel upwards and then down a darkened corridor. The Ravenclaw was almost certain that he could hear actual words amongst the hissing and rasping, and he sped up in an attempt to be able to hear better. The sound led him up two levels in the castle and along a few corridors he had never been down before he thought he was gaining on the source of sound.

" _Rip... Tear… Let me feast!"_ Just as Mateo heard the words they suddenly cut off in a seemingly triumphant hiss.

He turned the last corner and was faced with a completely pitch black corridor. Normally there was at least one torch burning in each corridor so the sudden dark immediately had him on edge. Carefully he cast a lumos and was able to see quite a distance down the stoney way. As far as he could see there was no one waiting to pounce on him as there should have been if this was a trick, however there was a black mass in the middle of the floor fifteen metres from him. Carefully he edged forward and had to stifle a gasp as he saw what the mass was.

Colin Creevey, clutching his trademark camera, was lying flat on his back as if having been frozen by a petrifying curse. However Mateo could not detect any sound of breathing, nor see his eyes moving. Gingerly he checked for a pulse and found none, but the body was half-warm like Mrs Norris'.

As soon as Mateo realised that whatever had caused this could potentially still be around he physically jumped into action whilst his brain went into overdrive. He couldn't really leave Colin in case whatever had done this came back to finish him off, so Mateo gingerly cast a levitating spell and directed the body to float at his waist height while he retraced his steps. Soon he came to a bit of the castle he recognised and made his way to the Hospital Wing undisturbed as everyone was at dinner.

Once there he gently set the body on a bed close to the office at the end and manually moved a few of the curtain partitions around the bed so that no other student could see the body if they came in. Annoyingly Madam Pomfrey was out at dinner like everyone else so Mateo settled down on a chair next to her office door and focussed on trying to calm his thoughts in the meantime.

"Whoever is doing this has a grudge against the Muggleborns, can freeze people without causing any further physical harm, and seems to be able to travel around invisibly. Magic does suck at times," Mateo muttered to himself with a sigh.

Half an hour later he heard footsteps approaching and he quickly stood and straightened his uniform and cloak to try to look presentable. How he appeared probably had no bearing on what the school healer thought about him or took the situation but it gave Mateo something to do with his hands. The greying matron bustled into her domain with easy familiarity, but her pace faltered as she spotted the changes.

"Mr Banner, what can I do for you?" the woman asked as she eyed up the newly moved partitions.

"I was walking through the castle when I came across another attack victim. It was Colin Creevey, the first year Gryffindor," he said grimly.

Madam Pomfrey didn't reply but raced around the curtains and started checking the body. Mateo hovered nervously just inside the hidden area and watched the woman's movements as she cast a few diagnostic charms. The sudden wisps of white light that shot out of her wand and zipped out of the room surprised Mateo but he assumed they were messages to different people. His assumption was proved right after five minutes when Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore appeared. Neither looked surprised by his presence so he assumed that the matron had explained what had occurred in the message.

"What's your prognosis?" the transfiguration teacher wasted no time.

"He is just like Mrs Norris, something has petrified him," Madam Pomfrey explained.

"Do you think he caught a picture of his attacker?" Professor McGonagall pointed to the camera.

In response the headmaster gently wriggled the camera from the frozen student's grip, a feat which took a while as Colin had had a very strong grip on it before being petrified. Once it was finally Albus tried to open the back, but all that was released was a cloud of black smoke and a horrendous smell of burning.

"What does this mean, Albus?" McGonagall asked worriedly.

"It means that the Chamber of Secrets has indeed been opened," Ablus said gravely.

Mateo remained quiet as Albus rattled off a list of things that could be beneficial in helping the school and seemed to forget about the Ravenclaw. It seemed that Professor McGonagall hadn't though, and she gently suggested for the headmaster to head off and set about drafting a teacher meeting and new school rules. It was a testament to how serious the situation was that Dumbledore headed straight out to deal with work rather than questioning Mateo about his part of the event. However once he had gone Professor McGonagall gestured for Mateo to join her and the pair left the healer to her new charge.

He was unsurprised that she headed for her office, it was probably one part of the castle that she completely trusted her conversations to not be eavesdropped on. Mateo had never been in her office before and took a few moments to look around in interest. It was surprisingly comfortable looking, as much as an official room could be, with a couple of wooden chairs facing the large oak desk that was piled with parchment. There were a few bookcases lining the walls, with the customary large fireplace and large windows framed with red drapes. The room wasn't completely square, due to its position in the castle, which just lent more character to the red and brown room.

Professor McGonagall gestured for him to take a seat whilst she locked the door and cast a few privacy spells before she sat at her seat. Mateo waited patiently in the deceptively comfy wooden chair, his hands resting on the arms instead of fiddling with his sleeves and his legs curled around the wooden ones of the chair.

"So how did you find Colin?" the transfiguration teacher asked.

After taking a deep breath Mateo launched into the story, leaving nothing out. The woman looked slightly worried at the mention of the voice and its desire to inflict pain but she refrained from interrupting. With a bit of thought they managed to figure out that Mateo had found Colin on the fourth floor on a less well traversed route to the Gryffindor common room via a number of interesting paintings. Colin, for all his annoying photographs, seemed to have an eye for art and had been found talking to some of the paintings before so they guessed that was what he had been doing.

"Do you have any idea what could be doing this?" Mateo asked.

"There's no record of any species living that can petrify people, but if this creature has managed to live for centuries in the Chamber of Secrets then it could be something long extinct in the wild that has been lost from the records of history," Professor McGonagall sighed worriedly.

"Any chance it could be some kind of snake? Considering it is related to Slytherin house I wouldn't have put it past Salazar to have a pet man-eating snake," Mateo shuddered at the thought of there being a massive snake in the school.

"Again it is a possibility but we have no record of any snake petrifying people, or living for multiple centuries."

"And the fact that I could understand it means it is likely not an animal but something at least partially human…"

"Indeed," Professor McGonagall agreed, "we can't figure out what is the cause by sitting here though. I'll pass on a doctored version of your story to the other teachers and we will take it from here. For now you need to keep focussed on your work and Quidditch, I would be surprised if there wasn't a school announcement tomorrow with some new rules for everyone to follow, but until then I trust you can keep this quiet?"

"It's the least I can do for you seeing as you saved me from being grilled by Dumbledore," Mateo grimaced.

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As predicted the news about Colin being attacked spread through breakfast, and soon every table was talking about the horrifying news. Mateo kept his part in it secret and joined in his housemates and Neville trying to figure out what could be behind it all. Albus decreed that curfew was now even more stringent, and anyone found outside of their common rooms after 8 would be severely punished. He also asked that people did not walk alone anywhere, which Mateo grimaced at but did not question. The fact that everyone was in the same boat, even the seventh years were ordered to not wander alone, made the situation a little more bearable for him. Also the Duelling Club announcement had most people at least a little intrigued about learning how to defend themselves beyond the scope of their lessons.

Definitely more than a few of the students saw the rather superior looks the Slytherins were wearing after the announcement as they were feeling rather confident in their safety. Mateo highly doubted that whatever was to blame could really tell the difference between ancestry of the students, which gave him the sudden worry that someone was controlling it. If Draco hadn't been looking so obviously smug Mateo may have suspected the boy, but he knew that it was only in the movies that the perpetrator of an incident was so obvious.

Everyone seemed pretty excited by the prospect of the fast approaching Quidditch match to improve the mood. After only three days of curfew and group walking pretty much half of the school was annoyed and needed a distraction. The build up of frustration ended up being unleashed in a rather spectacular fashion the day before the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw match.

Ron, who had been rather distant in the first year, had started to be more accepting of Neville now that the boy had started becoming more vocal and less timid in social situations. It also helped that he was friends with three of the top five students in their year, so when Ron finally admitted that he was completely lost with the Transfiguration work Neville didn't hesitate in finding his other friends. Mateo, Hermione, and Kevin were working together leisurely on the last finishing touches of their homework in the courtyard to make the most of the weak sunshine. Once they had learnt how lost Ron was with some of the theory the trio set to explaining the material and taking turns in pointing out easy ways to understand or remember it.

"Afternoon Mudblood and friends, it seems like your pathetic little band is growing."

Mateo clapped a hand on Ron's shoulder to stop him from rising before smiling at the small Slytherin contingent. As usual Crabbe and Goyle were flanking Draco who was looking smugly at them all, "I'm not really surprised by it, you three need all the protection you can get."

"You'd be surprised at what we can do Draco, although by now you really should stop underestimating our kind," Mateo replied gently.

"That's not going to happen until you surprise me, and so far you've only just proved that you are determined to be book worms and to try to claw your way up from the gutter. The thing is that you can be the best students of the year but as soon as you leave here you'll never be able to get any kind of job I can get," Draco said with certainty.

"I can't wait for the day that I prove you wrong," Mateo said.

"Don't fool yourself Mudblood, your kind will forever be at the bottom of the dregs of society. Along with your squib friend and the poorer than dirt blood traitors."

"Eat slugs Malfoy!" Ron finally lost his battle with himself to stay silent and snapped at the blonde boy.

Unfortunately for him his shout drew the attention of a few other students in the area, so there were plenty of witnesses to see his curse hitting the Malfoy heir straight in the chest. He was flung backwards a few feet due to the proximity of the casting of the curse being so close to him, and he landed rather painfully on his back. Crabbe and Goyle looked confused but started to charge the five who had attacked them, whilst Draco looked astonished and horrified as he lay still on the floor. Mateo couldn't see much of him due to the distance and the angle that he was laying at, but there was no doubt that something was wrong.

The approach of the two henchmen-Slytherins posed a slight problem, so Mateo quickly acted. He ducked around Crabbe and jabbed him in the bundle of nerves in his neck causing him to fall before spinning and doing the same to Goyle. Once both were down he hurried over to Draco, who was looking increasingly panicky and seemed to be unable to breathe.

"Come on now Draco, you need to breathe," Mateo said hurriedly as he put a hand on the other boy's throat.

His pulse was racing, probably from the panic, and he was even paler than normal. Mateo rolled him onto his stomach in an attempt to assist his breathing, and a quick slap to the back had him expelling whatever was in his lungs. Unfortunately it also caused him to vomit up a slug, and both boys looked in horror at the gastropod that started to trundle innocently away from them.

"Ron that was so not cool," Mateo said as soon as he could form a coherent sentence. "Is there a countercurse?"

"Not that I know of and I wouldn't tell you anyway, the git got what he deserved," Ron spat back.

"Sorry Draco, I think this is something we are going to have to leave to peter out of its own accord. We'll go to Madam Pomfrey and see whether there is a cure," Mateo stood and offered a hand to Draco.

The Slytherin looked at him with the deepest hatred Mateo had ever seen grace a person's face, and as a result his own kind look and offered hand faltered slightly. Draco scrambled to his feet by himself and his glare turned to horror as another slug forced its way up his throat. Mateo was the only one close enough to see how close the blonde was to crying, which was a surprising contrast to his almost permanent smirk. Mateo felt a wave of pity for the boy in front of him but didn't say anything about his opinion, or the very large pools of water in the Slytherin's eyes.

"My father will hear about this," Draco said after he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

"I would be surprised if he didn't," Mateo sighed.

"Rest assured he will," a silky voice said from behind Mateo.

The Ravenclaw forced himself to not jump and also to not sigh in frustration. He turned and respectfully nodded in greeting to Professor Snape. "Afternoon sir."

"Care to explain what has happened here Mr Banner?"

"Ron, Neville, Hermione, Kevin, and I were studying when Draco and his two friends… Sorry I don't actually know their first names, came up and started trying to get a rise out of us. Ron reacted badly to their words and cast some curse at Draco. I had to drop Crabbe and Goyle to get to Draco because I thought he had stopped breathing. He had but it wasn't permanent, and it turns out is now coughing up slugs. I was in the process of trying to convince him to stop with the death threats to go up to the Hospital Wing to try to find some counter curse seeing as Ron doesn't know one," Mateo summarised quickly.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and you and Mr Weasley will serve a week of detentions for assaulting another student," Snape decreed.

Ron looked ready to protest but Hermione stamped on his foot and distracted him, whilst Mateo nodded in acceptance despite the fact that Draco had started everything.

"Come Mr Malfoy, I believe Professor Flitwick would be the best qualified to deal with this," Professor Snape continued.

He conjured a bucket for Draco to sick up slugs into before leading the way with his three students following on. Mateo waited until they were out of sight before relaxing and returning to the others.

"That is a load of shit! Malfoy started it and he gets away with nothing!" Ron ranted.

"He's throwing up slugs, I think he has been suitably punished for his harsh words," Mateo pointed out.

"It could have been worse," Ron muttered.

Mateo sighed and gave up trying to reason with him. Instead he gathered up his homework and carried on making his final changes before they headed inside to comply with curfew.

"And why are you so calm about all of this? You didn't even hurt Crabbe and Goyle but you're being punished as much as me," Ron continued, unwilling to drop the subject.

"Yeah I might not have done worse, but I still assaulted them which is all that matters. And seeing as it was a muggle technique that is probably worse than any illegal curse that could have been used," Mateo pointed out.

Ron looked confused at that before he cracked a huge grin, "can you teach me how to throw a punch? It would be so fun to see Draco's face next time I deck him."

"And it is exactly for that reason that I'm not going to," Mateo said in a final tone, "just because you can do something doesn't mean you should use those skills for fun."

"Spoilsport," Ron muttered but did drop the subject, for now at least.

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Roger was not impressed that Mateo was being forced to miss the last week of training before their first match of the season, but he at least conceded that the seeker was not exactly critical for the tactics of the rest of the team. And he was quite sympathetic when he heard that Professor Snape had seen fit to organise for Mateo to spend his week of detentions with Professor Lockhart, while Ron was to be cleaning cauldrons.

It turned out that the majority of the Ravenclaw house was sympathetic with Mateo's sentencing and he received quite a few commiserating looks once it got out that his punishment was to help Lockhart with his fan mail. Thankfully Lockhart was not overly friendly as he was still a bit cautious of Mateo's dad but something that Professor Snape had done or said had the glittering man believing that Mateo was a bit of a fan on the quiet. And as Mateo showed the most promise out of his entire year, although as they did no practical wandwork in Defence Lockhart had to go on his grades in other classes, the professor seemed determined to mentor him.

After a week of Lockhart's ramblings and writing hundreds of addresses Mateo was truly repentant and had vowed that he would think twice before confronting someone physically. He had heard Ron complaining about his sore muscles and the almost concrete like substances stuck onto the cauldrons he was cleaning. However the Gryffindor seemed more determined to swear revenge rather than working on repentance.

But most of all Mateo was glad that at least Professor Snape had not decided that his punishment was to be banned from the next game, so as the Saturday rolled around the seeker was welcomed back into the team and they headed down to breakfast together. With each team now riding the same broom any game would be dictated purely on skill rather than being limited by what they rode. That meant that now the Gryffindor beaters were even more formidable and Ravenclaw didn't have to slow the speed of some of their moves to compensate for one of their chasers being slower than the others.

Like every match last year the Ravenclaw team ate breakfast together and ignored the other team doing the same thing a couple of tables over before heading out to the stadium. Mateo had grown a bit since the last match so his Quidditch robes were now almost a little too short, rather than being too big like last year. Roger hammered home the last few tips and tricks as the rain started falling on the pitch outside. It was a sad fact that they were pretty confident of a win against the badgers, but Roger was determined to keep the trophy in Flitwick's office so he kept pointing out the known tricks that the Hufflepuffs used.

Eventually 10.30 rolled around and they walked out onto the pitch amongst rather more enthusiastic applause than the situation really demanded. The light rain had intensified to a level that wasn't debilitating but still couldn't be ignored, and usually rain led to a rather grumpy apathetic crowd. But the occasion that broke from the monotonous rigid rules was gladly accepted and the crowds didn't care about the rain.

Mateo managed to spot his family in their customary tower but refrained from waving as he stood in the circle before kick off. Cedric stood opposite him and smiled politely before they mounted up and kicked off. The ascent wasn't much faster on his new team broom than it had been when he had played on his old broom but Mateo noticed the grins of joy on the other players that had been stuck on dated models as everyone scattered off. Mateo zipped past his family in greeting before concentrating on the game and searching for the snitch. There would be no help from the sun reflecting off of the tiny golden ball in this match so both seekers ended up circling the pitch at a quicker speed hoping to encounter the snitch in close proximity.

The rain made for a rather miserable game for the seekers once the initial excitement had worn off. The other players were more active and focussed on both each other and the various balls in play to really notice their robes slowly being drenched through. Lee Jordan seemed to be having an interesting time trying to keep up with the play as the chasers seemed to be passing the quaffle even quicker than ever. Mateo chuckled as the commentator gave up trying to keep up with the passes at one point in frustration.

Twelve minutes into the game and Mateo had just turned the end of the pitch and was starting to zigzag back up it when a bludger came hurtling at him. It was the first time in any game that he faced one and he almost forgot to duck until the last minute. Jason shot past him to beat it back towards the Hufflepuff chasers and gave him a happy grin on the way past. The beater had obviously intended to keep nudging his ball back towards the main play before sending it off towards Cedric or the Hufflepuff chasers, however the bludger had other ideas. It got only about twenty metres from Mateo before it halted and rocketed back towards the Ravenclaw seeker. Mateo rolled smoothly to avoid the ball and sped off to the other side of the pitch to get away from the projectile.

He just reached the other end of the pitch and turned around in time to see the ball hurtling towards him once more. Only by flinging himself all the way back was he able to miss the bludger that had aimed at his face, and Mateo cursed softly as he felt his lower back muscles seize in protest. He couldn't sit still though as the bludger came darting back at him once more. Seeing as static snitch hunting was out of the question Mateo urged his broom forward and used the extra speed the new broom provided to get ahead of the rogue bludger.

" _It looks like a bludger has taken a fancy to the Ravenclaw seeker, Banner seems to be working hard to keep away from it,"_ Lee said as Mateo shot past the commentary box.

It almost amused Mateo that the youth who was supposed to keep an eye on the game had taken that long to notice, but he let the thought go as he concentrated on dodging the stands whilst making the tightest turns he could. His effort proved in vain when the bludger just went _through_ the wooden supports, so he changed tactics and merely went for speed whilst trying to avoid the other players and still hunt for the snitch.

Duncan and Jason did attempt to help him by repetitively thumping the rogue ball off course and towards another player, but it merely deviated from the course and headed back for Mateo once more.

"Leave it, I can keep going and avoid it. Just make sure our chasers get as high as possible in case Cedric gets the snitch!" Mateo shouted to the pair as he saw the Hufflepuffs gain possession of the quaffle once more.

"You sure?" Duncan called back.

"Certain, now get going!" Mateo nodded to emphasise the point and shot back down the pitch.

Although he tried to keep as many tactics and motions that Roger devised for him in play, Mateo mostly ended up madly zigzagging around the pitch whilst alternating his gaze between randomly searching for the snitch and checking that Cedric hadn't seen it. Five minutes passed and he was getting severely sick of the pace he was maintaining and rather tired out. However seeing as the options were to slow down and get hit, or to swap out with Cho and leave her to deal with the bludger, or to keep going, Mateo knew what he had to do.

Finally by pure luck he was pulling up out of a stoop and he saw a flutter of dull gold in front of a Gryffindor banner hanging from the stadium on the other side to his location. With the chance to finally be out of the air and get to rest he willed the broom to hit its maximum speed and he shot towards the snitch, the rogue bludger following like a second shadow. Cedric seemed to notice his change in pattern and zoomed in from where he had been circling near the Ravenclaw posts.

Both seekers had opted for goggles in this match so they plunged through the rain at top speed unhindered. Mateo's constant need to stay moving had taken its toll and he was infuriated to see Cedric slowly catching up as the snitch led them on a merry dance round the stadium. It seemed that whilst the bludgers had remained at roughly the same speed the snitch now flew faster to compensate for the improvements in the broom quality, and it seemed like there would be no fast end to the chase.

When Cedric drew level with Mateo he mentally snarled in frustration and pushed himself and the broom even harder in denial that he could be beaten because of an animated ball having a grudge on him. The golden ball decided to go into a steep dive and both seekers followed, and they rapidly plummeted back to the ground. With only three metres to the ground left Cedric pulled out. Mateo continued until the last minute when he pulled out of the dive and swung a fist desperately at the snitch that was tantalisingly close having been outstripped by the human's terminal velocity.

Mateo almost fell of his broom from the force of his lunge, but he was rewarded by feeling the cold metal ball within his grasp. He quickly steadied himself and looked for the bludger that had been tailing him for so long. When he clocked it he rather viciously tugged his broom to a halt, quickly drew his wand and aimed steadily at the ball that was hurtling towards his face.

" _Bombarda maxima,_ " Mateo snarled, and grinned in an almost feral way as he saw the ball explode in slithers of leather and stuffing.

Seeing as he was only a few feet from the ground he kicked one leg over the broom and slid off, his boots sinking an inch into the mud. The rest of the team piled in on him in celebration and happily carried him to the changing rooms where he quickly greeted his family before being gently pushed to go change.

By the time he arrived outside again dressed in dry and warm robes Tony had ended up being cornered by a number of students who wanted to talk about brooms and Quidditch, and Thor seemed quite engrossed in a conversation with another gaggle of students. Away from all of them, in a very empty space, Bruce had been cornered by Professor Snape. Mateo gingerly approached and waited politely just outside of earshot but in an obvious spot so that both adults could see him.

"Mr Banner, I was just explaining to your father about your recent behaviour," Professor Snape said by way of greeting. His face was devoid of its usual frown or sneer, but he was still a million miles from appearing welcoming.

"Once again I apologise for it, I have truly learnt my lesson," Mateo said contritely. He wasn't going to start an argument that the incident hadn't been his fault, and he agreed that he could have been slightly less violent in trying to get to Draco.

"See that it doesn't happen again," the Potions master nodded to Bruce and started walking off before stopping suddenly, "oh, and impressive flying. Whoever tampered with the bludger clearly underestimated you."

"Thank you sir," Mateo said in surprise before the man had completely walked out of earshot.

"I take it that is the first time he has complimented you? He certainly doesn't seem to be the kind to give out many of them," Bruce said as Mateo turned back to him.

"I'm probably the first student outside of his house this year to receive one, so yes I am rather shocked," Mateo replied.

Now that they had some space the Avengers quickly engulfed the Ravenclaw and congratulated him on his victory. But after the round of back slaps and congratulatory hair tousling the adults were quick to try and figure out who could have wanted to hurt Mateo in such a spectacular fashion.

"Oh I think I know who it could have been, but I'm not going to be taking revenge," Mateo said firmly. "Draco's already feeling humiliated enough so I don't need to get him back for this."

"Why do you think it was him?" asked Tony.

"Who else has a grudge against me? The Hufflepuff's wouldn't stoop to such levels to win a game, and a Quidditch game is the perfect place to try to hurt someone playing without being caught. Draco, or another Slytherin, could have easily broken in and tampered with the ball in the night," Mateo was glad that they were mostly alone and unlikely to have his accusation overheard.

"You can't let him get away with it though!" Clint protested.

Mateo shrugged at that and decided to rise above it. "I call us even, if he tries something again then I'll act."

Thor and Tony soon excused themselves and they joined the pair to catch up on events. As much as Mateo wanted to update them on the more recent happenings at the school he was forced to only speak of the bare essentials whilst they were in danger of being overheard. Bruce then spent the next ten minutes arguing with the rest of them about pulling Mateo out of the school, and eventually it was Mateo that ended the argument.

"Look Dad, if whatever is attacking students is really some bigoted monster then I am safe, aren't I? And if I leave then most likely a large proportion of the first two years will do the same, and at the moment the situation isn't that dire. There is a cure that the teachers are working on, and so far no one has been killed. As much as I do not trust the man, Dumbledore will at least know the moment that it becomes too dangerous and he will send us home. Until then let me stay here and continue my lessons," Mateo pleaded.

"You'll keep us up to date, and if things get any worse I am pulling you straight away," Bruce stated.

"That sounds fair enough to me," Mateo agreed. "Besides, they are setting up a Duelling Club so that we can learn to fight. That has to be worth hanging around for at least."


	41. Chapter 41 - The Duelling Club

**A/N: Hey guys, sorry I didn't manage two updates this week. I'm actually quite busy at work doing my proper job so I've been quite tired in the evenings. Plus I just sorted out going on an egg incubation course in November! Very excited about that, it might mean I can get a job in conservation rather than just any job.**

 **And on another fun note I've just got my Cub Scout uniform, I'm being invested as a leader in just under two weeks! Woop woop!**

 **Cheers for all the reads, follows, reviews, and favourites. I really do appreciate them, even if I am terrible at getting back to people. So just take it as given that I am incredibly grateful for you taking the time to read my work.**

* * *

 **Chapter Forty One – The Duelling Club**

Three weeks of lessons, curfew, and seemingly continuous darkness passed before the school was enlivened with something of universal interest. The promise of a Duelling Club had been dangled in front of them for a while so it was a very eager crowd that formed around the notice board when the details of the event were released. However the interest pretty much plummeted when it became known that Professor Lockhart would be leading the Duelling Club.

The Ravenclaws felt that it was almost a personal insult that their head of house, who was a world duelling champion, was not to be teaching them in favour of the upstart. However pretty much everyone signed up simply to be able to learn how to defend themselves better and for something to do. The Gryffindors seemed to be treating it as an adventure, and quite a few Hufflepuffs were determined to be better prepared to protect themselves.

So on November the 7th everyone over first year filed down to the Great Hall after lunch, to where the club was supposed to be held. They were interested to find the tables had all disappeared and their place was a large space with a brightly decorated stage that placed in the middle. Small clusters of friends had begun to form around the room by the time the second year Ravenclaws arrived in a group, and so they joined the loose collection of the majority of the rest of their year. Mateo hadn't spoken much with the Hufflepuff lot so he smiled at them as Stephen tried to strike up a conversation.

At four pm on the dot Professor Lockhart strode through the side door and energetically bounded up the steps onto the stage.

"Gather round!" he started happily and everyone hastened to get a decent spot by the stage, "can you all see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent."

Gilderoy reached the other end of the stage and twirled neatly, his duelling cloak flaring around him artfully and showing off the gold thread sewn in amongst the dark black velvet. He then happily launched into a little introductory speech, that sounded rather rehearsed.

"In light of the dark events of recent weeks Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little Duelling Club, to train you all up in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I myself have done on countless occasions. For full details, see my published works."

Mateo heard Ron muttering about the vanity the man possessed as he undid his cloak fastening and tossed the item of clothing into a gaggle of girls. Underneath he was wearing what probably was some form of duelling clothes, however Mateo wasn't entirely sure the official duelling clothing really came with so much gold embroidery on them.

"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," everyone turned their heads to where the man gestured to see said Potions professor climb smoothly up the stairs. Unlike Lockhart, Snape had not dressed up for the occasion. The only change to his normal clothing was that he was lacking his normal billowing robes, which was probably a good idea. Mateo couldn't imagine trying to fight with a cloak on as being very successful.

"He has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration. Now I don't want any of you youngsters to worry, you'll still have your Potions master when I'm through with him, never fear," Lockhart winked at some more students before striding back to the halfway point of the stage.

"Five galleons says Snape lands the first hit," Terry muttered.

"No one is going to take that bet as we know you'll win," Kevin spoke back under his breath.

"You never know, Snape might sneeze and Lockhart could get lucky," Michael said.

"Not gonna happen," Kevin snorted.

The group fell silent again when both teachers reached each other and drew their wands. They silently demonstrated the salute that traditionally preceded a duel, which comprised of presenting wands in front of the face before bowing slightly the head and at the waist. After that both neatly turned and strode five paces away before again turning to each other.

Professor Snape pulled a stance that included the slightly bent knees but had his wand held above his head and his left hand pointing at Lockhart. The Defence professor stood with the left hand on his hip and the right slightly raised as if wielding a sword rather than a wand. Of the two Mateo knew which looked more intimidating and ready for battle, even if it was slightly sillier looking.

"One, two, three," Professor Lockhart counted, and then proceeded to just stand there.

" _Expelliarmus!_ " Professor Lockhart enunciated clearly before taking a step forward and bringing his wand hand forward to cast the spell. To Mateo the action seemed almost lazy and distinctly unhurried.

Professor Lockhart was struck straight in the chest by the white light and landed flat on his back almost at the end of the staging. Mateo agreed with the rest of the room that it had been an amusing sight, but was slightly worried that the man may have done some damage to his spine from the tiny groan he gave.

Professor Snape's face was inscrutable as usual, apart from a tiny tick of his right eyelid that could either mean he was holding back a smile or was ramping up for an even more vicious attack. The Slytherins and surprisingly the Weasley twins were openly cheering him; whilst everyone else stuck to laughing at the blonde teacher who was slowly clambering to his feet, looking a lot less confident than before.

"An excellent idea to show them that Professor Snape, but if you don't mind me saying it was pretty obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have only been too easy," Lockhart was soon back to full swagger by the time he had reached his opponent again.

"Perhaps it might be prudent to first teach the students to block unfriendly spells," Snape said slowly as if talking to a particularly dim-witted student.

He smiled in a manner that Professor Lockhart took as encouraging but most of the students knew what more in the lines of a 'this idiot has no idea' thought process. Lockhart smiled back and twirled to address the students.

"An excellent suggestion Professor Snape, let's have a volunteer pair, err…"

Mateo's heart dropped as he saw Gilderoy's roving eyes land on him. "Banner, Longbottom, how about you two?"

"Longbottom's ability makes even the simplest of spells dangerous, we would be sending Banner to the Hospital Wing in a matchbox," Snape's words cut through the air easily. "Might I suggest someone from my own house? Malfoy, perhaps?"

The potions master didn't wait for a reply before twirling and gesturing for the mentioned student to get on the stage. Draco did so with gusto and quickly drew his wand to stride down the stage to the middle.

"Remember you're on a murder break," Kevin muttered as Mateo dragged himself onto the stage.

He walked up the stage, ignoring the muttered good luck from Lockhart, and drew his wand from his hip holster in a smooth movement. At the halfway point he raised his wand like the adults had demonstrated.

"Scared, Banner?" Draco drawled as they dropped their wands down.

Mateo didn't reply but smiled in a friendly manner before bowing as deep as those before them had done, and he noticed that Draco barely jerked his neck. They turned and paced almost back to the adults at the ends of the staging before striking ready poses. It was unsurprising that Draco sank into the aggressive stance that Professor Snape had used but Mateo hesitated.

He knew Draco wasn't going to go easily and merely attempt to disarm him, but the question was whether he should retaliate or stand his ground. Attacking straight off would not be beneficial for anyone, but defending could lead to being called a coward. That wouldn't bother him, but if dragged into a difficult duel then he might accidently use spells that would be too advanced for an average second year. It would then be obvious that he had been actively studying and frequently practicing the motions. He may come across as a studious Ravenclaw, but he couldn't afford to let anyone see that he was doing much more than reading for fun.

However Draco's smirk, that was so reminiscent of Dudley's triumphant look, had Mateo to deciding on blowing caution to the wind and settling on going for a more proactive approach. The Slytherin looked disdainful at his choice as if Mateo was just copying him, but Lockhart started speaking.

"On the count of three, cast your charms to disarm your opponent. _Only_ to disarm, we don't want any accidents here," Professor Lockhart instructed. "One, two…"

Draco had apparently decided that following the rules was too mainstream for him and he quickly fired off a spell before the Defence professor got any further.

" _Everte statum!_ " Draco snapped and a pale orange light shot out of his wand and straight at Mateo.

Mateo didn't even have time to think of a blocking spell as he had been concentrating on his repertoire of spells that were not too offensive. His reactions saved him a painful collision as he collapsed to his knees and bent backwards so that the spell sailed over his head and dissipated in the wall at the back of the hall. He received a few claps of applaud for that, but he ignored them and jumped to his feet again. With his blood up thanks to the Pureblood not playing fair he decided to go on the offensive.

" _Rictusempra_ ," Mateo cast the first spell that came into his head, that being one they had just learnt.

Surprisingly Draco was flung backwards rather than ending up laughing on the wooden decking, and he landed in a painful looking manner at Snape's feet. A ripple of laughter swept across the room as Draco looked painfully at the black-clad man, and Snape sighed and dragged him to his feet. Before he shoved him forward once more the potions master whispered something in Draco's ear that caused him to smirk.

Draco and Mateo closed the gap slightly before the Slytherin cast again. " _Serpensortia_."

The mottled grey snake that shot from Draco's wand was not something that Mateo, nor the nearby crowd, expected as shown by the number of shrieks. Mateo studied the serpent for clues as to its venomous status, and was surprised to realise that he knew the species. He had seen a couple of King Cobras in India either with snake charmers or in secured pits in remote villages when they had been caught. However knowing what it was wouldn't really aid the situation, as Mateo knew how deadly these could be without the right antivenin.

"Hold still Banner, I shall get rid of it for you," Professor Snape sauntered forward and drew his wand at the same time.

"Allow me," Lockhart got there quicker and pointed his own wand at the snake, " _alarte ascendare_."

Mateo merely closed his eyes for a second and sighed as the snake failed to disappear. Instead it was merely thrown up into the air ten feet before landing with a thud and a less than pleased hiss.

Unfortunately for him, Justin Finch-Fletchley was standing right in front of the snake's head as it landed, and the reptile advanced menacingly, hissing and flaring its hood. Everyone froze as it reared and stared straight at Justin in the face, very obviously angry at its treatment. Even Snape hesitated from acting as it was clear that Justin could quite easily be harmed if the wrong spell was cast.

"Stop!" Mateo said quickly. It was a stupid action to attempt to command an animal, and he really didn't expect to be successful. But he was amazed when the snake spun to look at him in apparent curiosity, leaving Justin unharmed.

" _ **What did you sssay?"**_ it spoke sibilantly.

"Err, I said stop. You shouldn't attack innocent people as that's unfair. Feel free to bite the idiot behind me, he is the one who threw you in the air," Mateo said as he slowly walked forward.

" _ **But he iss the closesst, and I can tasste his fear. It would be an eassy kill and a meal to lassst me a year,"**_ it hissed fiercely and reared again at Justin.

"No," Mateo said firmly again, "If you attack anyone then you will be killed immediately. Listen to me, I am the only one here who is likely to be interested in saving your life, so consider what I am about to offer. I bet you are cold, you're very far from home. If you want you can wrap around my arm to keep warm whilst we try to find you some food. I am sure there are some mice or rats around here that we could find for your dinner. And Justin is definitely much too big for you to eat without cutting him up."

" _ **I accept your offer,"**_ the snake sank to the staging and slid across to Mateo. The boy was glad that the snake seemed to realise the danger it was in, and that it was intelligent enough to choose the safest of all the choices it had open to it.

Everyone was still in some kind of shock as it slithered towards the Ravenclaw who knelt and offered his left arm. However before it had even moved a foot away from Justin a bolt of light hit it and the snake disintegrated into black smoke. Mateo sighed in relief and a small amount of regret. It was only as he stood that he saw for the first time that the rest of the room was staring at him with mistrust, fear and, as Mateo was surprised to see, anger.

"Are you okay?" Mateo asked the still very pale Justin.

"What the hell are you playing at?" Justin snapped in a voice that quavered a lot.

"I was trying to stop it from biting you, King cobra venom might not be the most deadly but it can still kill in half an hour without the right antidote," Mateo explained.

"If you were trying to stop it why did it rear at him after you started speaking?" another Hufflepuff demanded angrily.

"Because he was the closest when it was angry, it wanted to lash out after being flung up in the air and hurt. It could taste fear and heat and knew it would win the fight," Mateo said in confusion, "didn't you guys hear him?"

"You weren't speaking English," Ron stuttered fearfully. "You were speaking Parseltongue."

"Speaking what?" Mateo looked at the Gryffindor questioningly.

"Banner, come with me," Professor Snape broke up the very public discussion and swept past the Ravenclaw on the stage. Even without his black cloak he managed to look rather intimidating whilst walking. "Professor Lockhart, I suggest you enlist the help of a few of the seventh years to teach the remainder of the session, or cancel it."

Without much of a choice Mateo followed the intimidating professor from the hall and down into the dungeons. He had tried to avoid any kind of incident that would lead to him being alone with the man ever since Professor McGonagall had warned him of the adult's skill. But now he was likely to be stuck in an office alone with him with no polite way out. However Mateo dug deep into his reserves of courage and kept up with the black-clad teacher as he opened a door and strode into the office. By the way that he had broken up the discussion earlier Mateo was hoping the man wanted to educate him on the subject privately rather than it being to punish him.

It only took him a few quick glances around for Mateo to decide that he much preferred Flitwick's and McGonagall's offices to Snape's. Even if the temperature alone wasn't enough to put Mateo off the room (and he still hated being cold with a passion) the shelves of rather gruesome pickled specimens certainly dissuaded him from liking the room. Whereas both Professor McGonagall's and Flitwick's offices had had comfortable wooden chairs and a good amount of natural light, Snape's was fitted with rather unappealing furniture and only lit by torches and the dying fire to the side of the room.

Professor Snape waved his wand at the fire and it flared back into life, and jerked his head to tell Mateo to go stand by it. He didn't need telling twice, and the Ravenclaw was soon standing at the very edge of the hearth with his back to the flames and his hands clasped behind him to keep warm.

"Thank you, sir," Mateo said, his words completely heartfelt as he already felt the benefit of the fire behind him.

"I am surprised that for someone who seems to know everything in every subject you are completely ignorant of your own talents," the man began.

"I have not actively tried to talk to a snake before sir, and I wouldn't have today unless Justin's life hadn't been in danger," Mateo replied honestly.

"So you were unaware of your ability to speak Parseltongue?"

"Yes sir, until just now I had no idea there was such a language. I assume it is not a common skill?" Mateo decided to be frank and hope that the point of this meeting was for both of them to learn enough to sate the curiosity of both of them.

"There has only been one recorded speaker in the last half a century, and probably less than a handful in all of recorded history," Snape began.

"From the bad reaction everyone had every one of those people have been associated with your house, sir?"

"Why do you think Slytherin's emblem is a snake?" the professor raised an eyebrow.

"Honestly I thought it was because the chief trait of your house is the ability to seemingly overcome any obstacle and foe in a manner that shocks the other houses, rather like snakes and their less than popular reputations in rural villages," Mateo shrugged.

Snape didn't respond to that statement, but Mateo thought he almost saw a flicker of respect flit through his teacher's eyes. The conversation quickly carried on. "Salazar and his descendants were said to be gifted speakers of the language, and it is said that only his descendants were gifted with the skill. Which makes the fact that _you_ can do so a rather large puzzle."

"But my mother and father were muggles, sir," Mateo protested, carefully wording his sentence so that he wasn't technically lying. His mother _had_ been muggle, and Bruce certainly was even if he was slightly more than plain average. By avoiding saying parents he technically wasn't lying, he just wasn't specifying which father he was referring to.

"It has never been recorded for Parseltongue to randomly manifest in a Muggleborn before, and I would not be lying when I say that the majority of the Wizarding population wouldn't accept the notion," Professor Snape said with certainty.

"So one of my ancestors was likely either an illegitimate child of Salazar's line, or perhaps a squib that was banished in shame?" Mateo asked, and was secretly pleased that he managed to sound curious.

"That could be a possibility, it was not uncommon for squibs to be disowned in ancient families," Snape sounded unsure, and rather frustrated about something.

"I'm sorry," Mateo apologised, then expanded upon the sentiment once the professor's confused gaze landed on him. "For someone like me to have a skill that is probably highly revered by your house does kind of insult many people's beliefs."

"You can hardly blame yourself for what your ancestry has gifted to you," the professor almost sounded nice when he spoke.

"True sir, but I could have let you deal with the situation and kept my silence, or perhaps have not have goaded Draco into prolonging the duel. Or even better have not even got on the bloody stage," Mateo chided himself.

"What is done is done," Snape stopped his self-recriminations, "what you must realise is that you are likely to be ostracised by some students, and possibly cornered by a few of my house demanding answers. You cannot go anywhere alone from now onwards, it might be a school rule but I hope you are intelligent enough to see what greater risk you are from fear driven students."

"I understand sir, I am not so hot-headed that I am above asking for help or knowing when to accept advice given. Thank you for the warning," Mateo bowed his head.

"Good, one student being attacked is bad enough this year and we do not need more joining Mr Creevey. Seeing as you are already one of the threatened demographic, and the fact you have now possibly painted a bulls-eye on your back, makes you a popular target. Stay out of trouble," the professor said in a sombre tone.

"I shall try sir, thank you and goodnight," Mateo left quickly and headed straight for the Ravenclaw common room.

"Wait," Snape said before the student could even move a pace towards the door. "I will escort you back to your common room, or have you forgotten the rules already? I highly doubt you want to return to the shambles that is Duelling Club, and as I'm feeling charitable I am prepared to escort you to your common room."

"Yes sir," Mateo really didn't want to spend any more time than he had to with the man, but he couldn't exactly run off.

The professor pushed himself off from the desk and strode towards the door. His pace only slowed long enough for him to grab his cloak from a hook by the door before he led them at a fast pace up out of the dungeons. They didn't slow to check whether the Dining Hall was occupied still, but instead marched past and up the stairs. They didn't really talk on the way up, one because Snape was not someone you idly engaged in conversation, and two because Mateo was having a hard time keeping up with him. By the time they reached the landing below the Ravenclaw stairs Mateo was panting heavily, whilst Snape seemed barely put out by the walk.

"Thank you sir, see you tomorrow," Mateo gasped as he walked at a much slower pace up the last flight of stairs to the door.

Even the doorknocker that sealed the way to the tower seemed to have already picked up on the gossip of the castle, as the answer to the riddle Mateo had to solve was _asp_. He sighed at that and entered, only to sigh again as he saw every person still in the common room turn to stare at him. He was unwilling to stand and explain everything right there and then so he merely smiled awkwardly and hurried to the stairs to the dormitories. A few people looked like they were wanting to intercept him but thankfully they didn't, and Mateo gained the stairs in peace.

But as soon as he reached the second year room he was confronted by the rest of the room's occupants. Kevin and Terry were already changed and sitting in bed whilst the others were in varying stages of undress, which ceased when they realised Mateo was standing in the doorway.

He sighed for the third time in about as many minutes and started speaking before anyone could start asking questions. "No I am not the Heir of Slytherin, no I have no idea how I can speak to snakes, no I did not attack Colin, no I have no idea what is in the Chamber of Secrets, and no I have no aspirations to be a future Dark Lord. Any other questions I haven't thought about?"

"Do you reckon we could use this to completely tear the Slytherin reputation to shreds?" Stephen asked.

"What, prove that their ideals that they hold so dear are actually completely idiotic and not even worth a knut? Hasn't Mateo been trying to do that since the beginning of first year?" Kevin asked.

"Yes but so far he has just been a muggle born student trying to reverse public perceptions, now he has power," Michael had caught on by then.

"Going up against centuries of stigma and tradition would be dangerous, the Slytherins highly dislike change and almost as much the thought of a nobody challenging them," Anthony said cautiously.

"I don't want to challenge them, I have a feeling things are going to be interesting enough for the foreseeable future without trying to overthrow centuries of stigma," Mateo ended the debate and headed to the bathroom.

The others were still discussing the thought of destroying the Slytherin ideals when he emerged in his pyjamas and ready for bed. Unwilling to be dragged into the discussion, Mateo drew his curtains and cast a silencing charm to block them out. However he was still lying awake long after all the candles had been extinguished outside of his little bubble of silence.


	42. Chapter 42 - Feuds and Fighting Back

**A/N: Hey, so a reasonably short chapter here. I've kept to the two updates a week that I've started doing recently. I'm quite a few chapters ahead so I don't feel like I can't hold them back. I reckon there's at least 30 chapters to go... so still quite a bit to write! Hope you are all still enjoying it, thanks for reading!**

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 **Chapter Forty Two – Feuds and Fighting Back**

Professor Snape had not been wrong at all in the reaction of his students, and Mateo felt the glares following him as soon as he stepped into the Great Hall the next day. What made the situation worse was the fact that more than a few people in the other houses, Ravenclaw included, who also looked at him with mistrustful glances. Thankfully it seemed that his frank honesty with his dorm-mates had at least secured their loyalty and Mateo was herded to their usual spot by the gaggle of male second year Ravenclaws. He was impressed when Neville joined them, despite the glares he received for doing his customary breakfast routine, and was glad that at least Hermione and Padma joined them without any hesitation. Mandy, Su, Lisa, and Morag looked a little hesitant at associating with Mateo but they sat near the main bulk of their year and by the end of breakfast they left together willingly.

The fact that even some of the teachers looked at him warily hurt Mateo more than it should have. He had been an exemplary student for the last year and a half and yet it seemed that possessing a 'dark' talent meant that they were willing to discard their experiences for stigma. Flitwick and McGonagall looked worried, and Dumbledore failed to hide his calculating look. Only Snape looked on with his normal bored expression, and it lifted Mateo's spirits to see at least one normal person.

With the blizzard continuing from the previous evening, the Ravenclaws were unsurprised that their Herbology class was cancelled due to adverse weather conditions. So being stuck inside led to most of the Ravenclaw students holing up in their common room by the fire, happy to chat and enjoy the warmth available. Mateo would have joined them but he took the opportunity to spend time with Neville so three of the second years left their cohort and headed to the library. Hermione ended up helping Neville with some charms homework whilst Kevin finished off his Astrology essay. Mateo was up to date so he wrapped himself up as tight as possible in his cloak and huddled in a chair, which amused the other three quite a lot.

"Hello there oh great Heir," Mateo almost jumped at the voice.

"Seriously Fred, don't do that," Mateo scolded the youth lightly.

"I'm Fred, he's George."

"No he's Fred," Mateo insisted.

"How can you tell the difference?" Hermione asked as she stared at the identical twins.

"George is prettier," Mateo smirked. "What can I do for you?"

"We want a word if you'll come with us?" George asked as Fred spluttered at Mateo's last comment.

"We still have an hour to kill, lead the way," Mateo uncurled and stood up.

The twins swiftly led him through a number of corridors until they reached a statue that Mateo had seen but never paid much attention to. George pulled out his wand and tapped the hump of said statue and muttered something, then slid into the opening that appeared. Fred gestured for Mateo to go next before the second twin entered last and shut the statue's secret door. Underneath was a short drop into a tunnel that led off at an angle to the rest of the school's corridors.

"We discovered this in our first year, then we found the others after we filched the map off Filch," Fred explained as he lit his wand.

"It's one place we _know_ we won't be overheard or found," George said confidently.

"So what do you want to talk about?" Mateo had a pretty good guess but let the twins take the lead.

"Isn't it obvious? So how did the whole Parselmouth thing happen?" Fred started.

"We know the Potters were as light as they came, so was your mum really a descendant of an illegitimate Salazar child?" George finished.

"Honestly I have no idea, I know pretty much the same as everyone else does at the moment. Snape is of the opinion you said, apparently a lot of Muggleborns have some relative somewhere in their past that was a squib. I'm going with that theory if anyone asks, even if I knew more that's still what I would tell them," Mateo shrugged.

"We take it your Dad is on the case?" George asked.

"He probably will be when I tell him, Garuda will not be able to fly in this weather and we're going home in three days so there is little point in trying to get the news to him now. Tony practically has the contents of Flourish and Blotts at home so we'll start research there then work outwards. If it comes to it we will run a full family tree to find out whether there is some relationship," Mateo replied.

"We're still going to call you the Heir just for the fun of it, even if you aren't related…"

"…The look on the Slytherin's face is too priceless to pass up this opportunity."

"It seems like the whole school is determined to rub this in their faces," Mateo sighed.

"Can't be helped, they had it coming to them," Fred shrugged.

"Well we better let you out to go back to your books," George said and Fred reopened the tunnel entrance.

Mateo said farewell and scrabbled back out to return to the library and the warm cocoon he had established before. He wasn't looking forward to explaining everything to his father, but he hoped that someone may have found some answers to help explain exactly what had happened eleven years ago between him and Voldemort.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

 **PARSELMOUTH DISCOVERED AT HOGWARTS!  
** _ **By Rita Skeeter**_

 **Rumours have been flying from the revered establishment of learning that is Hogwarts this year, and the latest flurry have topped all so far. If you remember, dear readers, we reported a month ago that the fabled Chamber of Secrets has apparently been opened. Not only has it been opened by the '** _ **Heir of Slytherin**_ **,' and that rumours speak of one student having been attacked. Although the student, rumoured to indeed be a Muggleborn first year of Gryffindor, has not been killed there are fears that the next attack might not fail.**

 **As you know my readers, the Parseltongue ability has been considered a dark skill due to its attachment to Salazar Slytherin himself and all his descendants. The last known person with this skill was You-Know-Who and the mere mention of the skill to some of the most hardened Aurors will still elicit a bad response. Notorious veteran 'Mad-Eye' Moody is still known to kill any snake he sees, such is his dislike of the beasts due to his encounter with You-Know-Who and his pet.**

 **You may think that the discovery of the student 'gifted' with Parseltongue, being able to talk to snakes, would reveal the perpetrator of the attack and solve the mystery. However, if the rumours are to be believed, then the student in question is actually one of the last you would expect. Rumour has it that Mateo Banner, a second year Ravenclaw, is the student in question. And furthermore he is a Muggleborn too!**

 **There is little information on the boy in question due to him coming from a muggle family, however Banner seems to have left an impression on those of the Wizarding world that he has met so far.**

" _ **He was quite a polite child the first time we met him at Gringotts, he speaks fluent Hindi which was quite a pleasant surprise to have. I have never heard anything but good things about him from my daughter who is in the same house,**_ **" Mrs Parvati commented to us.**

 **There are many parents who happily give glowing responses that echo how nice a child Banner seems to be. However when we reveal to them the rumours that are flying about the apparently charming Ravenclaw student, they seem a little less sure of their opinion of him.**

" _ **He might be a Parselmouth but he cannot be the one responsible for the attack, my sons said that he had been quite patient when Colin had talked to him and would take the time to answer his questions. It seems a bit odd that a Muggleborn could have the skill, but he wouldn't be attacking others like him. He apparently has caused a stir with some of the Slytherin students because of his views, so orchestrating the attacks wouldn't help at all,"**_ **Mrs Weasley was quick to defend the child.**

" _ **My son has written about Mr Banner's constant determination to disrespect our centuries of tradition, and constantly finds loopholes in the school rules to not be punished. He seems to think that because his adopted family members are famous in the Muggle world that that gives him immunity from being punished for his actions. He has physically attacked students before, while his reckless behaviour was rewarded with a reserve position on his house Quidditch team. I certainly have reservations about the child after this newest piece of information,"**_ **Mr Malfoy generously said in passing during his hectic schedule at the Ministry.**

 **Upon further research this tenacious reporter discovered that Mateo Banner was also part of the ruckus in Flourish and Blotts at the end of August. If you remember Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin Third Class, was signing books of his biography** _ **Magical Me**_ **, when a child was mistaken for Harry Potter. It turns out that said child was Mateo Banner, and the man who crushed a camera belonging to** _ **The Daily Prophet**_ **barehanded was apparently his father.**

 **For now, dear readers, you can be sure that many beliefs are going to be challenged through this revelation. Whether the discovery of this new Parselmouth leads to great changes in our society or to a new era of darkness remains to be seen. For now it seems that Mateo Banner is more concerned with gaining a good education, but we hope that he will be watched closely by both students and staff at Hogwarts just in case.**

Mateo slammed the paper down angrily and glared at the poor piece of writing. "How can they get away with writing such articles? In the Muggle world mainstream papers like this would never get away with printing such blatantly biased articles. Half of that is rumour and opinions rather than facts! Actually, I think the only true facts in this thing is my name, age and house!"

Hermione tried to placate her friend, "not all the papers are the same, it's the same in the muggle world as you know. I suppose it is just the reverse here that the more mainstream papers are the ones that are more emotive and more easily swayed by the government and public. I've heard that _The Quibbler_ publishes some interesting articles, but those that are relevant to current events are very accurate."

"But this is government endorsed and read by _everyone_! They practically accuse me of being the next Dark Lord!" Mateo fumed.

"Well you do rather have a temper-"

"And useful credentials to assist in the application-"

"Although your heritage does rather work against you…"

"Perhaps you can use your cult following to become a Light Lord?"

"Are you two offering to be my first official followers?" Mateo smiled at the humour of the Weasley twins.

"You would probably find our skills and knowledge useful for your cause," Fred laughed.

Various Ravenclaws within earshot laughed when they heard the twins suggestion, but that petered out when they realised Mateo wasn't joining in. Kevin nudged him nervously, "you cannot be considering their idea."

"Well I'm no more powerful than any of you," Mateo lied, "but I have this skill. Either I get shunned as a pariah by all the houses, or we can use it to help in the future."

"This is not the kind of conversation we want to have here," Hermione said nervously. "Perhaps we should meet somewhere later?"

"Meet us on the seventh floor in an hour," George said secretively without hesitation.

The twins then left to return to their table and the Ravenclaws and Neville finished their breakfast nervously. As it was the weekend there was no rush to leave, however they decided on doing homework for the next hour in the library. Kevin, Mateo, Hermione, and Neville ended up working together until the hour had almost ticked past before they headed up the central staircase to the seventh floor.

As promised they spotted two ginger headed figures waiting at the top of the stairs. Without a word the two beckoned the four along one of the main corridors and round a few corners until they reached an apparently empty junction. Fred halted and so the others copied him, while George paced backwards and forwards in front of a bare patch of wall. Hermione seemed ready to speak when the grating sound of stone started, and the wall morphed into a door. George grabbed the handle and opened said door, bowing welcomingly for the other five to enter.

Inside was a large cavernous room that couldn't possibly fit inside the confines of the space allocated to it outside. There were also windows that let in large amounts of light, whilst a fireplace more suited for the Great Hall also threw more light out. Numerous comfortable looking sofas, bean-bags, and pillows were scattered loosely in a circle in the middle of the room.

Fred had walked forwards happily and claimed a deep and comfy looking leather sofa, and once George had closed the door behind them he too walked forward and claimed a huge bean bag next to his twin.

"Make yourselves comfy," George said, his voice slightly muffled due to his face being buried in the furniture he was lying on.

The rest did as they were told and scattered themselves around the various pieces of furniture. Although they all were quite pleased with the calming room, they were all looking as confused as each other by this seemingly unknown room that was so unlike the rest of the castle. Until the mystery was solved they wouldn't fully be able to rest in the unknown room.

"Sorry, but what is this place?" Hermione asked.

"This, dear bookworm, is the Room of Requirement…"

"It will morph into whatever you need it to be: bedroom, relax room, forest themed room, bathroom…"

"Massive store room, swimming pool. We use it as somewhere to get away from the other students and teachers."

"But the best bit is you can specify who can enter too. So for this little meeting I specified that no one will be able to enter whilst we are in here so that we will not be interrupted," George grinned.

"So you can use it without interruption if you are careful to specify that?" Mateo said, intrigued.

"What are you thinking of then?" Fred lifted his head.

"I wasn't joking earlier when I was contemplating what you said," Mateo started. "I'm not Harry Potter, and we don't know whether he would appear if things kicked off again. Personally I find it a bit silly to rely on someone to save us because of something that happened when he was a child. It could have been a stroke of luck that saved him that night, we have no idea what happened. However, I know I am prepared to stand up and fight if Voldemort is still alive."

"You don't beat about the bush do you," Neville said, his face pale from the mention of the taboo name.

"If everyone lives in denial and he does come back then there won't be anyone prepared to stop him, both sides will be scrabbling for followers and resources. However _their_ side has people like Malfoy who already has money. So we can at least be ready to fight when a second war starts, even if we can't help with funding a war effort. Everyone seems to expect me to become a rival Dark Lord, or to be Voldemort reincarnate or something. So how about we work with that idea?"

"We start recruiting the students into some kind of army?" Kevin asked.

"Lockhart may have started a Duelling Club but that is just a farce, we find people who _really_ want to learn to fight and we train here. If I asked Tony I am sure he wouldn't mind finding us some textbooks beyond the curriculum ones, and perhaps some robes," Mateo shrugged.

"We'd need some way of communicating without the teachers and other students knowing," Hermione said.

"And we'll have to make sure that no one who joins can rat on us," Kevin added, "if we open it up to other students."

"Details," Fred waved them away.

"Details are what makes a masterpiece," Mateo countered and looked back at the others. "To start with we have to be sure that we are all in with this idea, we can take the training leisurely but once war breaks out again we are going to be joining in fighting. We will need healers and such too so theoretically you don't have to fight, but you need to be proactive."

"I'm in," Kevin said without hesitation. The rest followed in echoing the sentiment quickly.

"We can probably enchant some kind of list to ensure no one talks," Hermione suggested. "With some little hexes and curses on it of course to deter tampering."

"You little Ravens can be fierce when you want to be," George said in a paternal tone."

"You two are only a year older than us," Kevin said indignantly.

"But we are still older," Fred said in a final tone.

"How are we going to go about this then? Are we just going to train together and then join in any battle we hear about?" Neville asked.

"We need to be prepared to fight when the war starts up again, but we should probably be a bit more prepared than that," Mateo agreed. "I reckon I could talk to Tony and source us some robes to fight in. If we had some kind of uniform then we would know who was in the team and also we could also gain some protection from spells."

"Talking about protection, any chance we can learn some Muggle self defence? If it is as useful as your use of it to take down Crabbe and Goyle then it'll definitely be worthwhile learning," Neville suggested.

"I'll find some books to bring back after Christmas," Mateo promised. "So we have a place to meet, and an idea of what we are going to study to get ready. All we need is people and a way to communicate and we can get started."

"We need a logo too and a name," Neville suggested.

"What?" George asked.

"Death Eaters cast the Dark Mark into the sky whenever they have killed, we need something to cast when we win a victory or something if we are actually going to go into battle," Neville pointed out.

"Although it would be fun to announce our presence we probably don't want to be too obvious," Mateo mused. "I assume we would rather zip in, help solve the problem and get out again without getting caught?"

"Then how about we leave a feather or something as or calling card? Something simple but proof we were there?" Hermione said.

"It's more subtle," Neville agreed.

"A raven feather," Fred suggested.

"Too subtle, if there was a fight in a rural location then it might get mistaken for just another feather," George shot the idea down.

"Green parakeet," Kevin said next.

The group paused for a second trying to figure out how the boy came up with the idea. Eventually Neville broke the silence, "why a parakeet?"

"A little inside joke, Mateo's eyes are green and his Dad goes a very interesting shade of the colour when he is angry. No one will pick up on it but we'll find it amusing. And it's bright and obvious."

"I like it," Mateo chuckled.

"Do we want to extend this to more people?" Neville spoke up, "I don't mean that others shouldn't train, but surely trying to get forty or so people trained is going to take a lot of effort. If we focus on six of us for now we can possibly get very good and then when it starts to look like a war really is inevitable then we offer to let other people join. By then some of us should be good enough to teach a lot of people at once, at the moment there will probably just be a lot of people trying to be in charge and it could all go wrong."

"Sometimes I wonder why you are in Gryffindor with the brain you have," Mateo said and Neville blushed. "It's a good point, so perhaps for this year we try to keep it between just us?"

"That sounds like a plan Batman," Kevin said with a smile.

Mateo and Hermione chuckled at the reference but the other three looked blankly at the reference.

"Forming a secret group isn't really going to stop the haters today though," George said when the hilarity had died.

"I can deal with them, the main thing is we keep a low profile and we focus on the more important aim of training. I can't take back the fact that I have this skill and to be honest it has no uses in daily life, but we'll find something positive to use it for. And when we do we'll show the world that they have really been blind to the truly important facts in life," Mateo said firmly.

"We still need to decide on a name," Hermione reminded them. She had taken it upon herself to make notes and had started drawing sketches from their ideas for their outfits.

"That's easy," Kevin smirked and everyone looked at him questioningly. "We are the Avengers."


	43. Chapter 43 - Making Headway

**A/N: Hello everyone! Sorry for the delayed update, I've been ill with a rather horrid cold most of this week. Plus we took the puppy to the vet to have her spayed, and trying to keep a part Spaniel from being hyperactive is like trying to stop the tide!**

 **In other news: I'm getting into the top pages in this crossover for some of the registered statistics! And I have other ideas for stories to work on when I finish this - I've got about 20 chapters to go on this story (beyond those extras I haven't posted yet). Currently both are Doctor Who related, but there are other ideas bouncing around my mind that are in other fandoms.**

 **Thanks to everyone who reads, and double thanks to those who reviews, follows, or favourites this story.**

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 **Chapter Forty Three – Making Headway**

Christmas term was one of Filius' favourite time of year. With the majority of the school empty he looked forward to relaxing in the afternoons free from marking or corridor patrolling. However he first had a task that he had to complete to fulfil his vow to a specific student, and now was the perfect time to do it. He had asked Minerva to create a distraction for about an hour at least, and Filius didn't find it suspicious at all that Gilderoy had decided to ask Albus to help him redecorate his teaching room. If he happened to see a very familiar grey cat lurking on the corner of the corridor outside said room then he didn't comment on it.

The bonus of the Headteacher quarters was that the office and living quarters were all linked together, so Filius would have no difficulty in getting to all the books Albus had. It may have seemed like a flawed design, but with Fawkes and over two hundred portraits watching the rooms there was no way someone could take anything. Convincing said bird and paintings would be the hardest part of the operation, and Filius was not looking forward to the verbal battle.

"What are you doing?" Filius almost flinched as the voice cracked through the air before he had even had a chance to get fully through the door.

"I need to borrow a book," he said shortly.

"Does Albus know you are up here?" the dark painting near the bottom of the high walls asked.

"Not exactly, but what I am researching will benefit him if I am right. I just don't want to bring it to his attention until I know for sure," the Charms professor said slowly. "As such I would appreciate it if you didn't tell him that I was up here until I present my findings to him."

Filius looked up at the painting and held his breath while the portrait seemed to ponder the request. The living man was starting to worry as the time ticked past and the painting seemed more likely to deny the request. However the only other living being in the room solved the argument, and Fawkes trilled happily at Filius.

The sound seemed to solve the dilemma the painting was having, "very well, most of his books are in here but there are a number within his chambers."

"Thank you, I'll check the ones in there first," Filius nodded to Phineas and walked through the door at the back of the room.

Dumbledore's private quarters were incredibly neat, and also decorated in very bright shades of pretty much every colour of the visible spectrum. Red seemed to be the most prevalent out of the lot, but every colour appeared in at least one shade on the curtains and sheets. Filius quickly located the collection of books under the window and started reading titles. Although the topics were extremely varied there wasn't any that seemed to be what would be even remotely relevant to what Filius wanted.

A second lot of books were placed on a large bookcase behind the bedroom door and Filius moved there next to search. He had been reading titles for ten minutes already and he was starting to get annoyed at the lack of relevant material. With the height of the bookcase shelves he ended up being too short to see more than a quarter of the shelves, so he had to take a break and transfigure a quill from his pocket into a ladder. With it propped up against the top shelf of the bookcase Filius was able to climb higher and read every book.

Again he seemed to have reached a dead end in the bookcase, certainly there was nothing on the shelves so far. He finished reading the titles and sighed in frustration. If he ever wanted to read a book on baking, fashion, flower arranging, bedtime stories, ancient history or astrology Filius knew exactly who to go to first. He was about to climb back down the ladder and head to the office when something caught his attention.

The last five books he had looked at were nothing out of the ordinary, and normally they probably wouldn't have received a second glance by a casual observer. However Filius, being so close to them from his position on the ladder, noticed that they did not fully line up with the other books. He tried to push one back, but found that he could not push it to the very back of the shelf.

Carefully Filius pulled the five books out individually and laid them carefully to one side. Behind them was tucked a small book, quite thin and very old from the looks of its cover. The black leather was cracking from age, and seemed darker than Filius had ever seen a hide be cured to before. However the spine and corners of the book showed very few signs of wear, as if the book itself had not been read more than a couple of times. Warily Filius flipped the book over and checked the title on the inside first page.

" _Secrets of the Darkest Arts_?" Filius read the title, and shivered as his skin crawled. With practiced easy he transfigured another quill from his pocket into the same sized book, and charmed it to look like the book he was taking. Gingerly he placed the five books back in their original order in front of the fake book before climbing back to the ground level and reversing the spell on the stairs. With the quill back in his pocket and the book shrunk to fit in his pocket Filius happily walked back out of the room.

"Any luck?" Phineas asked.

"Not yet," Filius lied and made a show of carefully looking at the spines of some of the books in the office.

After a further half an hour he gave an exaggerated sigh of frustration. "I have a feeling I am barking up the wrong tree here, I think I shall go and look over my notes again before coming back. Thank you for allowing me to look Phineas."

"Have fun with your research," Phineas already sounded bored with the idea.

Counting that as a possible good sign Filius trotted down the spiral stairs and quickly headed back to his office. Once safely sealed within his rooms, after using the strongest locking and warding charms he knew, the man unshrunk the book and gingerly flipped open the first page. The part goblin proved his Ravenclaw status by easily starting to speed read, and within two hours he had read the small volume from cover to cover. What he had read left him feeling sick to his stomach, and with the vague feeling of his mind and eyes being slightly violated from reading such a book.

He understood why Albus had attempted to conceal the book, although he couldn't get over the fact that the seal on the first page showed that it had once lived within the library where _anyone_ could have read it. Filius shuddered for the fifth time and gingerly swept the book into a draw that he had warded and sealed to ensure no one could tamper with it.

The next act he did was to summon a tray of tea and fixed himself an extremely strong, sweet cup. Considering he was expecting company at some point he cast a charm on the cup and teapot to keep both warm and allowed himself to sink into his thoughts as he sat in front of the fire. The dance of flames and heat caused him to calm slowly back to his usual state, and after a while he was soon so deep in thought that the knock at his door caused him to start badly.

"Good afternoon Filius," Minerva said as soon as the man opened the door.

"Minerva you startled me," Filius admitted and opened the door wider for her to walk through.

"I take it you were successful then?" Minerva saw the worried look that Filius hadn't managed to completely hide.

"Horcurx," the man stated simply after he had rewarded his rooms.

"That sounds familiar," Minerva sat on the sofa by the fire.

"You split your soul and store a part of it in something else so that you cannot completely die," Filius explained.

He was glad that the woman had sat down as he was certain she would have fallen once she heard the explanation. As it was it seemed like her spine lost its rigidity and she slumped against the back cushion of the sofa, a look of terrified disbelief on her face. "Horcrux?"

"I'm afraid so, that seems to be the most likely explanation available. The fact that Albus was hiding the book suggests he too suspects that theory," Filius nodded sombrely.

"I suppose it is unsurprising for that to be what You-Know-Who chose to take, he murdered enough to have his pick of souls to sacrifice whilst splitting his soul," Minerva paused when she saw Filius gasp and turn white, "What's wrong?"

"I just had a terrible thought, what if it is more than one?"

"Is it possible to split the soul more than once?" Minerva asked, feeling rather sick at the idea.

"We already know of one," Filius meaningful glance told Minerva exactly what he was referring to, "and perhaps the reason that one was created was because his soul was already unstable from splitting it before that final time. But if we assume that he chose a specific number it must have been for a reason, random decisions were never in his nature."

"A powerful number? Three, four, five, seven, nine? I would have thought beyond that his soul would be too fragmented to function well enough," Minerva said slowly as she thought.

"We will need to try to find out more, but for now we have to send this information off to Mateo and his family to act on. I would have thought that the items You-Know-Who would have chosen would have similarly been items of power, or of personal value to him. We can start brain storming ideas, but I'm certain Tony would have enough knowledge of our culture to make some good guesses too," Filius decided.

The Transfiguration professor stood to go send the letter immediately, but Filius stopped her just before she left. "Tell him to start studying Occulemcy as soon as he can, this _cannot_ be spread further."

"I will," she promised and swept from the room, a lot more troubled than when she entered it.

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The shock and horror that was caused by the news was soon shared across the pond as Bruce learnt the truth. He had been surprised to receive a letter by owl, especially because Mateo was back in America, but once he had read the contents he understood. In some ways he was grateful that someone had had a breakthrough with the conundrum, he and Tony had been poring over every book he could find ever since September and he had been unsuccessful. They had even taken to hiring a couple of shady but seemingly trustworthy wizards to search the American magical world for anything even remotely relevant to the topic. Their library had tripled in size with dark texts, but there had been no definitive answer.

Surprisingly Tony was not in his lab, as was his normal habit at this hour of the morning. Instead he was working with Mateo to design something on one of Tony's projectors, but they stopped when they spotted the scientist.

"Morning Mean Green," Tony smiled at the newcomer.

"Hello, I'm surprised to see you up and out at this hour," Bruce said weekly.

"How can I pass up the opportunity to spend time with my favourite godson?" said Tony brightly.

"I'm your only godson," Mateo chuckled, before he realised how shaken Bruce looked. "What's wrong?"

"Flitwick and McGonagall had a breakthrough," he started.

"Well that's good isn't it?" Mateo said when Bruce seemed reluctant to continue.

"I guess, however knowing what Voldemort did can only help us so far. We know he created Horcruxes, which apparently means when he murdered someone he could split a piece of his soul off and store it in something. These objects could be living or dead," Bruce said grimly. He felt slightly guilty when he saw Mateo turn slightly green at the thought, but he knew that his son wouldn't appreciate being left in the dark. "And to make matters worse we have no idea how many times he split his soul."

"At least we can now look for a way to destroy a Horcrux so that when we find them we can get rid of them," Mateo said with forced optimism.

"Do we think Thor might be of use at this point?" Tony suggested.

"Asgardian culture may not have any comparisons, but their culture is much more advanced than ours in some ways. Seeing as Loki was able to sense the part with Mateo means that they may be able to at least suggest ways to detect them. It cannot hurt to ask Thor the next time he is around," said Bruce.

"And we need to find a way of removing them without causing damage to the host," Mateo said with a very noticeable tremor in his voice. Although he was trying to remain detached the very real threat he was hosting a piece of the megalomaniac's soul was frightening the still young child.

"I'm sure he can help, he has the whole of Asgard to ask for advice," Bruce said reassuringly.

"So we need to figure out how many of these things he created?" Tony asked.

"Indeed, McGonagall and Flitwick have no idea how many there could be, but they think it is most likely an important magical number and that he used important objects. Apparently he always had a thing for power and associating himself with it," Bruce relayed what had been written in the letter.

"Perhaps if we can get some Asgardian to look at me then they might be able to tell how many there are?" Mateo asked, then explained when the other two looked confused. "Well surely the piece of soul that you store in a Horcrux must be the same size as what you are left with, otherwise you'd only have a tiny piece to be resurrected with? I really don't understand the concept, but I would guess that if you were to split your soul into five or so you would equally divide your soul so that you would be as powerful as possible when resurrected. If you just halved your soul each time then you'd only have a sixteenth of your soul after the fourth time, which probably isn't very powerful."

"He has a point," Bruce said after thinking it over.

"Well perhaps over the summer we can ask Thor if you can go to Asgard for a visit, I'm planning some renovations to the tower so everyone is going to be spread out for a while," Tony decided.

"You're renovating?" Mateo asked in interest.

"I've finally got permission to build the Avengers Tower how I want it, larger landing pad for a quinjet and everything. This place is going to look so much cooler," Tony grinned like a child in a sweet shop.

"When does that start then?" Mateo couldn't help but get caught up in Tony's excitement.

"As soon as January rolls around, hopefully we can get it all built by next Christmas. The new design involves ripping off a lot of the old décor and building a larger upper module…" Tony ended up closing the work they had been looking at to open up the blue prints to help explain.

The new design seemed to incorporate a larger open plan communal area with open views in all directions, a laboratory area set just above it for Bruce and Tony to work in, the promised large landing pad for a quinjet, and a larger area for all their equipment and the Iron Man suits. The living floors had been crunched down a bit to accommodate for the new layout, so although Tony and Pepper still got their own private floor the others were going to be sharing. Seeing as the rooms were all soundproofed no one was really complaining about the change.

"Talking about designs, would you be able to look over what we were working on?" Mateo asked and poked the projector to return to their previous task.

"What is it?" Bruce looked at the blueprint for some kind of clothing in interest.

"Well a group of us decided we were sick of the apathy in the Wizarding world and how no one is prepared to step up to stop the media and purebloods bullying the little guys. So we made a pact and we are going to use the Room of Requirement to train in so that we are ready when the war starts, and that way we can help stop people pigeon-holing others over trivial things. Tony's generously offering to fund us some dragonhide robes, or at least waistcoats until we are fully grown and won't need to keep altering robes. This is the design so far for our outfit," Mateo enlarged the image and looked at Bruce with hopeful expectation.

The first thing the scientist noticed was that the design was incredibly similar to the Auror battle robes that had been depicted in the book Clint had bought over a year ago. The hoods were deep and had a strip of material stitched to it to cover the lower half of someone's face if they wished to use it. Theoretically when worn you would only see the eyes of the person wearing it. The sleeves of the robes were loose to not be restrictive but not baggy enough to hinder movement or spell casting. The biggest difference between the Auror robes and the blueprints in front of Bruce was that the cloaks ended halfway down the calf instead of trailing all the way to floor length. In theory the cloak would fit any student if the sleeves were stitched up, and they were immediately distinguishable from anyone else.

Mateo had gone even further with his designs and had drawn up an outfit to go under the cloak. Each member would wear knee high boots to protect their lower legs, and the diagram showed a leather waistcoat and armguards would be part of the ensemble.

"Should we have the funds then we would get anything leather made out of dragonhide, which is good at rebounding spells. The fabric parts will have protective spells woven into them, just like Auror robes," Mateo explained. "That way our vital organs will be doubly protected, it'll just be our upper legs that only get one layer of defence."

With the design outlined Mateo swapped from blueprint mode to 3D models of the suit. As he talked he highlighted each part of the suit once more. "We didn't want a colour scheme that could be confused with the Aurors or Death Eaters, so we were thinking dark blue robes, brown boots and waistcoat, and the armguards too. We were thinking of having the shirts being the same colour as the house that the person came from, but then yellow could make the wearer look rather jaundiced so we swapped that to the belt colour. Trousers will be black and shirts will be red."

"We thought about having a logo but that could be a bit too revealing of the people in the group so we are just going in plain robes. Although we did decide that if we went into a fight we would leave a little token to reveal our presence," Mateo smirked. "Kevin suggested we call ourselves the Avengers, and for lack of a better name we've stuck with it at the moment. I may have to talk to you about trademarks and copyright Tony, unless you can come up with another name for our group."

"I'm sure we can set up a magical division," Tony grinned. "You're going to need a lot of training to be worthy of the name. otherwise I may have to take you to court for using our name."

"We're aware of that, and with Hermione's ability to devour books to absorb knowledge we will be able to cover all the spells we need. Then it's just a case of finding time to practice them, which hopefully in three years we would find enough time to train. The twins found a place for us to work in secret, and we've got two more years before our year have to focus on exam revision. If we keep on top of homework during the week that gives us weekends solid to practice."

The energetic enthusiasm that bounced between the pair dulled slightly when they saw the unhappy look on Bruce's face. Tony sobered up a bit and spoke with solemnity that had been missing since their discussion of Horcruxes. "I've already pointed out the logistics of children being in a war, and that they would have to train at least thirty people to really be a serious match."

"It's different enough from both sides that you won't be mistaken for either of them," Bruce said slowly as he looked closely at the ensemble. "There isn't any part of it that will hinder your movement, there's nowhere unprotected apart from the hands. Add some gloves just in case and I think you'll be alright in that aspect. Other than that I think it is a good design."

Mateo beamed at the man and quickly saved the designs for future use.

"It would still be best for you not to have fight at all," Bruce groused.

"Trust me we all agree with you Dad, but surely it is better for us to be prepared just in case? And with the books Tony has and all the training I can get off everyone here will help protect us better than just sitting around and hoping the war won't come to us. Plus everyone will underestimate us which will put at even more of an advantage," Mateo leant against his dad in an attempt to reassure him.

Bruce hugged his son and tried to relax but both him and the Other Guy were worked up in concern of the discussion and the threat that his son could face. "It might not be the most interesting summer you're going to have but I would appreciate it if you did focus on training this summer if you really are set on this idea."

"I'm fully prepared to do so, and I'll even spend as much time this Christmas doing the same," Mateo promised.

"You are going to enjoy this holiday too though," Tony insisted.

And Mateo did as Tony and the other Avengers in residence made sure that the next three weeks were full of games and laughter. In comparison to last year they had Thor to rope into their games, so anything they did had a new feel to it as they explained the rules. Thor had brought along 'Lady Jane' to celebrate Christmas with them, so Pepper had company as the Avengers and Mateo indulged their childish side.

Tony seemed to have been preparing for the festive season for months. Initially Mateo had no idea what he had been up to, such was the level of his secrecy. However as Christmas Eve rolled around Tony unveiled his masterpiece. He had swapped his engineer skills for home brewing and had tried to make a drink which was potent enough to get his super soldier friend drunk. If it could get Thor drunk then that was an added bonus, and Tony had brewed enough to drown a whale with. Most of the tower residents enjoyed watching Tony and Clint attempt to once again drink Thor and Steve under the table. However it seemed to still not be effective enough for the super soldier or the god.

Mateo received the usual mound of clothes, books, potentially questionable weapons, and a small pile of sweets from his school friends. They ended up watching films whilst sprawling on the large sofas contentedly, apart from Clint and Tony who passed out the hour after opening their gifts. No one had really paid much attention to the pair, but apparently they hadn't managed to drink the entire stock of 'Stark's Signature Serum'. Neither were inclined to let something to go to waste, so their unconscious states were due to alcohol rather than tiredness. When he saw what had happened Steve grinned and found a permanent marker, just to rub it in when the pair woke up the next morning.

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Minerva and Filius had recovered from learning of Voldemort's scheme eventually and were able to act reasonably normally around Albus the following day. What helped them focus on normal events more was Gilderoy's antics that ended up aggravating most of the staff and drove them to secretly meet in the evenings to grumble together. Severus often stayed in his quarters apart from mealtimes so that he could avoid the man, while Pomona used the excuse of ensuring the mandrakes were not too cold or too hot to escape to her greenhouses. That left the rest of the staff to band together in the staff room to endure Lockhart until he retired for the night.

Albus hadn't suspected anything and was sharing in their pain by frequenting the staff room more. However he seemed to find the man amusing rather than aggravating, which perplexed Flitwick. On Christmas day they made sure to wedge the man at the end of a table with Dumbledore so that the majority of them were free from his constant chatter. As it was a number of female students happily gathered around him and he spent the entire meal regaling them with his tales so the rest of them managed to eat in peace.

In order to try to do some more digging Minerva ended up turning to the student records for clues. She knew that Dumbledore had taught Voldemort as a student but seeing as he had not used his proper name after leaving school, and that his followers who did know were banned from using it, it was not common knowledge that Voldemort's true name was Tom. Luckily the school had a practice of keeping the files of all past students, and that Minerva had access to them as part of her duties as Deputy Head.

So one evening when most people were having the night to themselves the Transfiguration professor headed to her office and went to the specific draw that held such records. All it took was a tap of her wand and vocalisation of the right name and she had the file in her hand.

In some respects she was surprised that she had never thought of doing this before, but then the idea of trawling through Voldemort's childhood had never been on her list of things to ever do. The file was quite a bit thicker than some records she had seen before, and the reason became apparent after she started reading.

Dumbledore had been the one to go visit the then child at an orphanage, and had left a note that the manager had expressed concerns of his abilities and the fact that every other child avoided him. Beyond that there was notes on his unusual following by other students, his prowess in classes, and his services to the school. If the general tone of the staff writing the notes being vaguely worried Minerva could have mistaken the file for Mateo's.

With as much information as she could glean from the file jotted down on a piece of parchment she dropped the file back into the draw and shut it once more. She hadn't learnt much, but she knew where Tom had lived before Hogwarts and the name of his parents. It would have to be enough, so she copied the information and sent an owl to America with it.


	44. Chapter 44 - Descending Darkness

A/N: Hey guys. Sorry for the delay in posting an update, as I've already proven my productivity drastically crashes when I am unmotivated with my day-to-day life. I've reached a point where I have to make a decision with my job, and neither option is terribly appealing. But hey, we are all here to read a good story and not my mental ramblings, so forgive me for the gap in updates.

As always thank you everyone for reading, and double thanks for all favourites, follows, and reviews.

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 **Chapter Forty Four – Descending Darkness**

Mateo felt it as soon as they reached the grounds of the school from the Thestral carriages. Hermione and Kevin didn't seem as aware as he was of the feeling but he saw both of them shiver unconsciously as they walked up the long path to the castle. For some reason there was a darker feeling about the establishment that didn't seem to have been there when they left. Whether it had grown whilst they were away, or whether it had been there when they left but they hadn't noticed Mateo wasn't sure. Either way, it made his skin crawl slightly in unease.

The teachers seemed to be more glum than usual at the start of a term which had Mateo wandering whether another attack had happened over Christmas. Then he realised that Gilderoy was being as rambunctious as usual and that that was likely the cause of the rather forced smiles at the top table. Mateo managed to catch the gaze of his head of house and sent a respectful nod and smile in his direction, hoping that the man would take it as a signal of thanks. From the small smile Professor Flitwick sent back to him Mateo was hopeful that he had indeed understood.

During the feast Mateo did a quick visual check and from what he could see there were no missing students which eased his mind greatly. It seemed that most people were rather subdued during the meal, whether consciously so or not was hard to tell, and it seemed that only the Slytherin students were anywhere near their usual selves. For the first time Mateo was wishing that they would be excused as soon as possible so that they could escape the gloomy atmosphere.

Once they finally were Mateo wasted no time in heading straight for his bed and trying to sleep, he hoped that in the morning the mood would have brightened. At least the lessons would distract them all.

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The professors seemed even more determined to throw their students into their studies it seemed, by the way the lessons became much more intense and the homework slightly harder than before Christmas. For Mateo he found the increase easy to deal with but he heard Ron muttering about how unfair it was for them. His presence in their study group in the library became more common, as was the same with Dean and Seamus, so they were forced to claim a larger table to accommodate for this. After only one day of Ron's continuous muttering under his breath about the injustice of life Mateo politely told him to shut up. Surprisingly the ginger did so, but then Mateo remembered what most people still thought about him. It was obvious that the only reason Ron was tolerating being so close to Mateo was the fact that he had no hope of completing his homework without the aid of the Ravenclaws.

It seems that the student body was in two minds about Mateo and his newly discovered gift. Well, three minds overall, seeing as those who shunned him either did so because he had a dark skill that couldn't mean anything good, or shunned him because _he_ was the one with the skill and not a Pureblood. The much smaller minority who still thought that Mateo was not likely to turn into some raving Dark Lord at the drop of a hat were unfortunately also the quietest in voicing their thoughts. Half of them seemed worried about being accused of supporting Mateo, but he was at least content to get a few sympathetic glances or small smiles in the corridors for support.

Perhaps the best part of the false opinion many now held of him was that Draco and his house were in an uproar over the slight against them. As a result the Weasley twins were still determined to get as many laughs over it out of the other three houses as possible. The fact that it would also rub the Slytherin's faces in it too was just a bonus to them apparently.

On the first Friday that they had been back at school Mateo was sitting on the side of his table that faced the Slytherin table. It was a spot he regularly took as he felt it was safer to have them in sight rather than show them his back. However this meant that he couldn't keep his eye on the rest of the room. It was this that a certain two students decided to take advantage.

The only warning that Mateo had was the sound of two sets of approaching feet before something was thrust onto his head. He heard Neville emit a weird sound that could have been a mixture of a yelp of surprise, a bark of laughter, and a gasp in fear. Kevin was chuckling and he could hear Hermione making the disapproving sound that often preceded a disapproving lecture, but Mateo was more concerned about what the twins had put on his head.

It felt like a thin metal band that was probably two inches tall all the way round that increased to a diamond like point at the centre of his brow. He could feel some engraving on the band so he took it off and inspected the patterns, and the reason for Hermione and Neville's reactions became clear.

Two snakes, their tales linked at the back of the crown, curled around the band to the front of the crown, where their flickering tongues framed a soaring raven. The metal felt heavy which meant it wasn't something expensive like silver, but made from a much more durable metal. The crown was something he really hadn't expected, but he wasn't surprised the twins had made it, it fitted in with their plans.

"Where and why did you two get this?" Mateo asked in surprised as he continued to inspect the coronet.

"Seeing as you are the Heir we thought you deserved a crown that matched your peerage, so we got in touch with one of our brothers who works with goblins. He owed us a favour so we called it in for this," Fred explained.

"Do you disprove of it my lord?" George asked.

"No no, I approve," Mateo laughed, "thanks guys."

"Nothing is too much trouble for the Heir," Fred bowed.

Mateo grinned as the two then proceeded to bow and scrape to him whilst walking backwards. Eventually he laughed aloud and waved them to stop and walk away, which they did. The room was reasonably quiet as people seemed to be in a mixture of shock and fury at the antics of the twins and Mateo. Said Ravenclaw just ignored everyone and turned back to his breakfast and carried eating, whilst still wearing the crown. It took at least everyone five minutes to stop staring and return to their own meals, although now the conversations around him seemed to be a lot more subdued.

Hermione looked like she was about to comment but Mateo merely looked at her with a meaningful glance and she stopped herself with a sigh. He kept the crown on until the end of breakfast when he took it off and carefully tucked it into his book bag. He received some rather hateful glares from some first year Slytherins that were leaving at the same time as them, and a third year even went so far as to shout a death threat at him in the entrance hall, but luckily the press of Ravenclaws travelling together seemed to have deterred any greater response from the green house at the time.

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"That boy has a death wish," Professor Snape growled.

Those teachers within earshot didn't have to ask _which_ boy the speaker was referring to, and they all turned to see the events unfolding between the twins and Mateo. Such actions they had come to expect from the two gingers, but seeing the twins openly joking with the Ravenclaw, and for him to join in, had more than a few of them groaning internally. All the teachers knew all the details of the evening last year that had seen the trio being caught out at night, but many of them had hoped the punishment had been enough to dissuade any more antics. It seemed that they wouldn't be so lucky.

Seeing as the focus of their interaction was also something that seemed likely to incite a lot of anger in many students further cemented the worry a few of the adults were feeling.

"If those three have formed a partnership I resign now," Minerva muttered in exasperation.

"They've been friends since last year and the school is still standing," Filius tried to comfort her.

"Are we completely ignoring the fact that they have probably just angered the entirety of my house and are probably starting a war between themselves and one hundred and fifty others?" Snape hissed at them.

"If they stop at that then likely your students might just ignore it for the prank it is, but if the Weasleys continue to treat him like royalty then there could be problems," admitted Flitwick. "I have Mateo just before lunch, I shall caution him then."

"I have the twins before dinner," McGonagall added to the conversation, "I shall too warn them."

Although it hardly seemed to be any kind of response to the insult being thrown at his house Snape was pacified by the offers. Seeing as his protestations were often met with rebuttal he was surprised to see the others, especially McGonagall, taking his concerns seriously. It seemed like everyone agreed with him that the situation was too serious to be joking about. For now he let the subject drop as he left to prepare his classroom for lessons, and the other teachers followed suit. Filius was careful to listen in on the chatter that occurred during his lessons that morning to see what the main gossip was. He knew that charms was viewed as one of the less strict lessons, and that the students did end up talking about a lot of unrelated things. However the spells still got learnt and, on the rare occasions that Flitwick cared to listen, he could learn what was going on amongst the students. As he never told students off for gossip it seemed that they assumed he never listened in, which was of course completely wrong.

As he suspected the little stunt that the Weasley twins had pulled was either received in the light vain it was supposed to be, or had the students frothing at the mouth at how disrespectful and insulting it was. The Slytherins muttered of revenge, the Hufflepuffs chattered nervously about how far they were willing to support the twins before they went too far, the Ravenclaws were surprised at the illogical move that incensed the snakes, and the Gryffindors just thought it was hilarious to play them at their own game.

Overall it seemed that Mateo would not likely be further ostracised than he already was, while the twins had really challenged the student's tolerance of them. As Snape had pointed out, his house could possibly be a problem to all three of them, a fact that Filius knew they already knew but one he would warn Mateo of anyway.

The second year students filed in calmer than the sixth years before them had been. Filius was quite content that the lesson went reasonably well despite the morning's excitement, and Mateo did not seem to be overly concerned by his predicament. Those students in this class were much more at ease with each other than if the timetabling had remained as normal, as it was it seemed that the Gryffindors had warmed up to Mateo a tiny bit.

"Mr Banner, I wouldn't mind a quick word if you have the time," he called to the boy at the end of the lesson.

"You guys go ahead, I'll walk down with Professor Flitwick," he heard Mateo say to his friends.

"I am glad to see your friends so concerned of your welfare," Filius started once the door had been shut behind the last leaving student.

"Despite mine and the twins' idiocy this morning they still believe me worth caring for," Mateo sighed as he replied honestly.

"Do you three have some secret plot to destroy the Slytherin house?" Filius asked.

"Would this be covered by the Unbreakable Vow?" Mateo asked, and when the adult nodded he continued. "Partially, we decided that if we could we should use my unexpected skill to our advantage."

"Does anyone have any theories as to why you are a Parselmouth? I have one of my own but it is good to hear others," Flitwick asked.

"Ours is probably the same as yours," said Mateo as he tapped his forehead.

"Professor Snape was not amused by the events this morning, but he was most concerned about the retribution that his students might be planning. As such we decided it would be prudent to tell you so that you can be aware," he continued.

"Thank you for the warning, I had guessed that we had painted targets on our heads as soon as the twins put their gift on my head. However we're planning to try and rattle as many cages as possible whilst we can, and I think the twins in their own way are trying to keep the mood light. There is certainly a darker feel to the castle at the moment," Mateo confided in the adult he trusted.

"Hopefully their acts will have the desired effect, but I feel that you are stamping on the cracks in the ice underfoot. Just be aware that I am advising you to stop this immediately in case the Slytherin house doesn't take it as a joke," Filius said in a sombre tone. "Now we should head to lunch."

With either a teacher finding an excuse to talk to him on the way from a lesson to a meal, or with over five other students tagging along with him Mateo found himself once more completely safe from any acts that the Slytherins may have been planning. The Ravenclaw Quidditch team, once they had finally decided that Mateo was only guilty of being born into the Salazar line rather than planning on being a Dark Lord, also accompanied him everywhere when they headed out to practice. The only time he was with less than four other people was when he went with Hermione and Kevin to the library.

So Mateo found himself feeling incredibly guilty to feel relieved that he was not involved the next time a student was found attacked. Ron was the student this time that stumbled over the body of Justin and the smoking remains of Nearly Headless Nick on the fourth floor.

Inexplicably the Hufflepuffs spent a little while glaring at Mateo after the discovery, as if he was still the one responsible for the attacks. Ron also took to avoiding him more than before as if he too believed that Mateo was to blame, and although it hurt Mateo didn't take it to heart. He knew that there were a few Gryffindors that were more than a little suspicious of him so he merely ignored their fickle behaviour.

It seemed that Lockhart had finally started to realise that outside of his little bubble of amazingness there was a lot going on, and that it was making the student population rather down. Seeing as his rather disastrous Duelling Club had been mostly taken over by the other teachers (who were determined to keep the students safe from injury in the club) the Defence professor tried another tactic to raise morale.

Which led to pretty much every student blinking in shock as they entered the Great Hall on Friday the 14th of February to see the entire room decked out in pink and red streamers, complete with small fluttering heart confetti drifting from the ceiling. Lockhart was grinning from ear to ear with as he surveyed his handiwork as he sat dressed in pale pink robes.

"I think my eyes might bleed," Kevin muttered as they sat down.

"It is rather eye-catching," Mateo said as he sat next to him and reached for the thankfully confetti-free food.

Although there seemed to be a few students, namely of the female demographic, that were enjoying the décor the large majority kept their heads firmly directed at their plates to avoid looking at the decorations. It would be quite amusing if it wasn't so hideous to look at.

Near the end of breakfast, when the greatest number of students were gathered together, Professor Lockhart got to his feet and clapped his hands to gain everyone's attention.

"Good morning everyone!" He beamed at the room. "Happy Valentines Day! And may I thank the 46 people who have so far sent me cards. I took the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all, and it doesn't stop here!"

As he spoke the doors opened and a dozen less than amused dwarves marched into the Great Hall. Mateo would have been equally unimpressed with the situation if he too had been forced to wear gold wings and carry a harp around.

"My friendly card carrying cupids," Gilderoy announced to the room. "They will be roaming around the school today delivering to your valentines. And the fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my colleagues want to enter into the spirit of the occasion, why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a love potion? And while you're at it Professor Flitwick knows more about entrancing enchantments than any wizard I've ever met! The sly old dog!"

Professor Flitwick buried his face in his hands in despair, whilst Snape was giving a glare that promised a fortnight's detention to anyone who dared approach him.

"I think Lockhart has just sealed his fate," Mateo chuckled at the looks of disgust that were very poorly disguised up on the staff table.

"This is going to be a painful day," Kevin agreed.

All through the day classes were disrupted by the short 'cupids' stomping in and delivering cards and reciting poetry to hapless victims. In the corridors people were rugby tackled by the dwarves who were determined to get their duty over and done with as soon as possible and were prepared to do what was needed as a result.

Mateo was quite surprised to discover that some of the cards and messages were for him, much to his disgust and amazement. The first time he was walking from Charms to Potions and was discussing the homework they had just been set when a commotion in the hallway behind then heralded the arrival of a dwarf. Like many others who pitied the men forced to carry out Lockhart's bidding Mateo flattened himself against the wall to allow the 'cupid' easier passage. However when the short man reached Mateo he stopped and turned to look at the second year pressed against the wall.

"Mateo Banner?" he barked out gruffly.

"I am," Mateo did not like the look of where this was going.

"I have a poem for you," the dwarf reached into his satchel and pulled out a scroll.

Mateo held out a hand to receive it, but the other did not extend the parchment. He looked at the dwarf in polite questioning and the elder man sighed in exasperation, "it is a musical message."

"Lockhart's doing you all an insult by making you do this," Mateo said before awaiting his valentine.

" _His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad, his smile is as warm as the sun. I wish he was mine, he's truly divine, oh please let me be his one._ "

"Well that is horrendous penmanship. Whoever wrote that needs as much help as they can get," Draco spat from further up the corridor.

"It could be worse, you could have written it!" Neville clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Keep out of this blood traitor," Draco spat.

Neville seemed about to reply when Mateo grabbed him. "Keep calm Neville, you've just given me a great idea."

"What's wrong Mudblood, no come back?" Draco smirked.

Mateo waited until the Slytherin crowd had left before hurrying after the dwarf whilst rummaging through his bag. When he had what he wanted he started to scribble madly as many lines as he could think before he caught up with the dwarf.

"Sir Cupid," he called.

"Name's Khaz," the dwarf replied gruffly.

"Khaz, would you be willing to listen to a proposition?" Mateo asked politely.

"Depends what was offered," Khaz grunted.

"Will you follow me, it will only take a moment," Mateo asked.

"It can take all day if you want," the dwarf said as Mateo led him to an empty classroom a few doors down.

Mateo quickly threw up a privacy ward before turning to the cupid once more. "What are you getting paid to do this?"

"That is none of your concern," Khaz stated.

"I only ask as I wish to make you a business deal. I have twenty galleons on me right now, if you are willing to accept poems from me all day and quote them to Draco Malfoy all day then they can be yours."

"It'll be rather obvious what is going on if it is just me doing it," the dwarf pointed out.

"A fair point," Mateo said before thinking. He could not afford to offer 20 gold to every dwarf, the prank was not worth that much.

"However I am sure there are a number of us who would willingly help out. Especially if the constant disruptions within a class would infuriate the other teachers and cause their ire to fall on the fool that hired us," Khaz suggested.

"That surely isn't my intent," Mateo said innocently.

"No you just want to annoy that blonde-haired prig, but it certainly wasn't something you hadn't considered as being an added bonus," Khaz smiled fiercely.

"Well…" Mateo shared a conspiratorial grin.

"I thought it was only those in that green house that were supposed to be the scheming ones," Khaz laughed roughly.

"It is not an exclusive trait, it just seems that only a few of us are prepared to embrace our manipulative sides," Mateo said as he dug around in his bag once more. "Here, your payment and a few poems to get you started. I will have a few more for you after lunch if you can arrange to be in this classroom again?"

"I'm pretty sure I can find the time in my busy schedule," Khaz growled and grabbed the pouch and rumpled parchment. "Why would you be carrying so much gold around in school, you have no place to spend it."

"Something I picked up from my Godfather, it never hurts to be prepared," Mateo said before nodding his thanks and legging it out of the classroom.

It did not do well to be late to Snape's class, and as it was he was a minute late.

"Five points from Ravenclaw for your tardiness, Banner," Snape snapped as he walked rapidly through the door.

"Sorry Professor," he replied before sliding into his seat.

He didn't hear more about his potential prank until lunch time two hours later. Neville had looked at him questioningly as they were brewing but he merely shook his head and focussed on his cauldron in front of him. When they entered the Great Hall the horrendous decorations and confetti were still there but everyone seemed a little more animated than before. The Slytherins were looking grouchy, and the second years even more so. On the other side of the hall the Hufflepuffs were chatting quite animatedly and those in Mateo's year were actually looking rather amused. To those just entering it was obvious that something had been occurring, but what that was did not immediately become obvious.

Mateo sat down in their customary spot and pulled out a fresh piece of parchment and started to scribble short ditties and poems as and when they came to him. Kevin and Hermione, then a few more after them, pulled out work and pretended to do homework to disguise his work. Mateo had kept tight-lipped about what he was doing, but then Khaz appeared once more and walked towards Malfoy.

"What now? Can't you just get lost!" Malfoy snapped loud enough for half the hall to hear.

"Can't, I'm under orders to deliver every poem given to me to the right recipient. If you don't like it then you'll have to take it up with the person sending the poems, or the one who organised today," Khaz said before reaching for his scroll.

" _His eyes so cold and judging,  
his hair so pale and manicured.  
My soul is yearning,  
so let's raise a tankard,  
to the one and only Draco Malfoy._"

Khaz stomped off once more while the room erupted into laughter. Mateo wasn't sure whether the dwarf had intentionally spoken the poem as loud as he could without actually shouting it to the hall. However at least the hall had fallen silent at the arrival of the cupid so the majority of the hall heard.

"Well you heard the man."

"To Malfoy!" the twins said and raised their goblets to the Slytherin.

"I know this is your plan Mudblood, I will make you pay," Draco hissed.

"I don't know what you are on about Draco, it would be rather suspect of me to be sending valentines to a male. If I was to come out as gay then I would at least send a valentines to the one I loved rather than to just anyone," Mateo pointed out.

Draco turned back to his table and continued to quietly fume while the room laughed at his expense. For the rest of lunch Mateo subtly wrote more poems with the input of his friends before they left together for Herbology. Mateo slipped into the same abandoned classroom again to hand over his latest masterpiece to Khazand then headed to the greenhouses with a grin on his face.


	45. Chapter 45 - Darkest Times

**A/N: Hello guys! To make up for my lack of posting for a couple of weeks, here is an extra chapter this week. I will update again tomorrow too seeing as I have enough chapters to do so. I'm starting to run a bit low though, so I'll have to hurry up writing! Saying that, I've reached the end of my original writing and have to start creating content once more. So for people who hadn't seen, I started writing this about 6 months before I started posting for people to publicly see it. Although I have added many many chapters to the original story I had still got to the beginning of year 4.**

 **Thanks as always to everyone who reads my work, I hope you enjoy it! Those who show their appreciation/opinion in any form of favourite, follow, review have my double thanks! And as always, I love constructive criticism, I want to become an author so any help in making me a better writer is gratefully received!**

* * *

 **Chapter Forty Five – Darkest Times**

The anger and amusement that was caused by Lockhart's attempt to lighten the mood lasted a surprisingly long time. It helped that the twins at every occasion made sure to salute Malfoy during meals with their goblets, while some somehow managed to get confetti to rain down on the Slytherin table for a few days after the rest of the hall was clear of the devilish stuff.

However even the joking of the twins and some clever charms student did little to alleviate the constant level of fear and worry that existed amongst over half the population. Even Quidditch matches only provided a distraction for a day for the house that won, although Ravenclaw just pipping Slytherin to the win did give the majority of the school a moral boost for the weekend.

Bruce, Tony, and Clint's presence at that Quidditch match proved to help encourage a few Muggleborn students as the three ended up chatting to quite a few of the kids in an attempt to cheer them up. Bruce made certain that the Other Guy did not make another appearance at the school, the students didn't need even more fear in their lives. But he did enjoy discussing science with some of the seventh year students who had quite a good grasp of the subject despite having no education on the topic at Hogwarts.

However everything came crashing down around Mateo a month later when three Ravenclaw students were found petrified on the same day.

Mateo, and Neville had been waiting outside of their Charms classroom on the 14st of May when Hermione and Kevin had failed to show for the lesson. The two had assumed that they had got caught up in the library, Hermione had shot off there halfway through breakfast and Kevin had followed. As students were not allowed to roam anymore even in the day they had likely been detained in the library. However when the lesson ended they were stopped from leaving by Professor Flitwick. Said teacher had just received a note that had fluttered through under the door and he had quickly read it.

"Neville, Mateo," the Professor checked they had paused and that the others had left before continuing. "Come with me please."

"Professor?" Kevin spoke for the three of them.

"There's been another attack," he said with a small look of sympathy.

"Hermione and Kevin," Mateo breathed, and both him and Kevin lost any semblance of joviality.

They didn't speak again until they reached the hospital wing. The corridors had been surprisingly quiet and the three of them had made good time to the place even with Professor Flitwick setting the pace. Once there they were greeted with a curtained off area that had doubled in size since Christmas and a very solemn looking Madam Pomfrey tending to her newest patients.

The two friends were shocked to see Penelope Clearwater lying in the bed next to their two friends but they were most concerned about the other half of their group. Kevin and Hermione had been placed rigidly on the soft beds, their pale skin fading almost seamlessly into the white covers under them. Although they couldn't feel anything in their frozen state, the way that Kevin was resting his weight on his left ankle and right forearm looked extremely uncomfortable.

"Where were they?" Mateo asked in a hoarse voice. Although he knew they were not truly dead seeing two of his best friends lying in the beds had his breath catching in his throat.

"Halfway between the library and my classroom," Professor Flitwick answered.

"Typical," Banner said.

"All three of them were found with a mirror in their hand, does that have any significance to you at all?" their head of house pressed.

"None, if Hermione had figured something out then she would have had to have learnt it just before she was attacked. Kevin had wanted to make sure that none of us were alone, although it obviously made no difference here," Mateo said bitterly. "Penelope must have met them in the library and could have been heading out to tell someone what they learnt when she was attacked."

"At least they are petrified and not dead," Neville said in his ever optimistic way.

"The mandrakes will be ready in just over a week; they will not be here long. And once they awaken we will get answers," Filius said determinedly.

"That won't save anyone in the next week and it seems that whoever is doing this is getting bolder. The next attack might not fail, we need answers _now_ ," Mateo growled.

"We can't get answers now, the petrified can't exactly spill the secrets they hold," Neville said calmingly.

"Whoever did this is going to have to have a very good excuse for doing this," Mateo said angrily.

He was unaware of the curtains starting to rattle on their rails and the bedside tables shaking until he was called up on it.

"Mateo," Filius said in warning.

The student snapped his head up and saw the man's gaze travel to the curtains and how they moved. He had no idea how his anger had caused things to move, but apparently it wasn't a new concept to Flitwick so he didn't worry about it at that moment. Mateo breathed deeply and started pacing down the curtained area to Colin and back up to Kevin at the far end. After a couple of turns up and down he felt reasonably calmer and he paused at the foot of Hermione's bed.

"May we be excused from the rest of today's lessons?" Neville asked.

"Certainly, I will arrange it with Madam Pomfrey that you can stay here for the rest of this lesson before someone comes to escort you back to your common rooms," Professor Flitwick offered.

"If you don't mind," Mateo said quietly.

The professor conjured a couple of comfy looking chairs before leaving them with their friends. Mateo grabbed a spare rail and moved it between them and Penelope, closing their view of the other petrified students and reducing the morbid feeling they were experiencing by a tiny bit.

"How did they get attacked in broad daylight in the middle of the school?" Mateo broke the silence five minutes later.

"Either the person causing the attacks is clever or desperate to keep us down," Neville suggested.

"It has to be a student, there is nothing that could get through the castle undetected," Mateo said.

"Unless whoever is doing this is following behind and hiding it as soon as it has attacked," Neville countered. "Even the professors don't know a spell that could cause this."

"I'm sure Lockhart would say differently if you asked him," said Mateo in an attempt to raise the mood.

"Why didn't the last school teachers hunt down the beast that did all the damage the last time the Chamber opened? A student died last time didn't they?" Neville rubbed his head thoughtfully.

"I doubt we can march up to a teacher and ask them, only Dumbledore was teaching then and I don't want to try and confront him," Mateo shrugged.

The pair sat in silence for a while after that, each sunk in their own thoughts. Eventually the weak afternoon sunlight started to aggravate Mateo so he shuffled his chair to face the room as he sat in between the two beds, while Neville did the same thing on Hermione's far side. Even though she wouldn't feel the comfort Mateo grasped her clenched hand and rubbed her knuckle gently.

"I wish we knew what had been worth the risk for them to stay so late," Neville sighed.

Mateo didn't reply as he was occupied with something else. His fingers had curled around to Hermione's palm and while three of them had met skin, his pinkie finger had met parchment. Surreptitiously he wiggled his hand a bit into her loosely clenched fist and discovered more of the material.

"We may just get to find that out," Mateo finally answered. "Hermione's holding something."

Neville jumped up from his seat and moved around to Mateo's side to watch him gently try to wiggle the parchment from out of their petrified friend's grip. Although loose enough to work with Hermione had definitely not wanted to lose whatever was on the paper so it was no easy task to worm it out of her hand. However Mateo was persistent and ten minutes later he gave a small hiss of triumph as the parchment came free.

"Did she rip that out of a book?" Neville asked as Mateo smoothed it flat and they saw the jagged side.

"Hermione's just as daring as you are it seems," Mateo chuckled. "But I am surprised she would even consider defacing a book in this manner."

The parchment was indeed from a book, yellowed slightly from age but mostly untarnished suggesting the parent source had been a rarely used tome. Mateo quickly read the title and raised an eyebrow before skimming through the page of information provided.

"A basilisk?" Neville did not sound convinced.

"I ruled that out at the beginning of the year," Mateo said slowly. "But things do add up to build a convincing argument."

"The roosters were killed," Neville started the list.

"I have heard voices which led me to finding Colin, if it was a snake then that would explain if no one else could hear the voice," Mateo continued.

"But why has no one died? Petrification is not mentioned here, has it got cataracts or something?" Neville asked.

Mateo thought about it for a while until his gaze landed on the mirror. "It might not, but no one has looked at it directly. Hermione, Kevin, and Penelope were using mirrors."

"Mrs Norris saw it through a puddle?"

Colin saw through his camera and Justin looked through Nick," Mateo finished triumphantly.

Before the conversation could go any further they heard footsteps approaching and they quickly arranged themselves into positions that looked less like they were conspiring. From the pace of the feet and the sound of the shoe Mateo guessed that Professor Flitwick had returned. He was proven right when the man gently nudged a curtain to one side and locked gazes with Mateo.

"Do you want to stay here or head back to your common rooms?" Flitwick asked.

"I think heading back is the best bet, sitting around here moping doesn't do anything to help anyone," Mateo said and Neville nodded in agreement.

The walk was once more conducted in silence, Mateo was thinking too hard to worry about trying to make conversation, Neville was rather upset and Flitwick kept silent out of respect of the other two. Thankfully the corridors were empty and they were not faced with sympathetic glances or annoying Slytherins gloating. Neville was the first to be dropped off before they wound back through the castle to the Ravenclaw tower.

"We will get to bottom of this Mateo, it might just take time," the man finally spoke as they reached the doorknocker that sealed the tower from the rest of the school.

"I know, it's just infuriating that this happened 50 years ago and no one bothered to follow it up last time," Mateo sighed.

"This time I won't let it slide, we cannot have Muggleborns being terrorised just because of their ancestry," Filius agreed.

"I'll see you later Professor," Mateo turned and waited for a riddle.

" _A nightmare for some, for others as a saviour I come. My hands, cold and bleak, it's the warm hearts they seek. What am I?_ " the doorknocker asked.

Mateo stood there looking at the inanimate object for a minute before he figured it out. "Death."

The door opened and Mateo swore softly in Hindi, **"you're a jerk, you know that?"**

Possibly the only good side of the attacks was that the common room was mostly empty, only a few students with free periods were dotted around the room. By acting as if he had forgotten a book Mateo was able to walk hurriedly up to the dormitory he shared and got to the relative peace and solitude up there.

Perhaps the only bonus of having the day off was that he was missing yet another two hours of Professor Lockhart's drivelling, and if he had been forced to sit through that today he may have snapped and hexed the man. But being absent from his classes wasn't that much of a blessing as it gave him more time to think and ponder the situation at large. After a while he was able to categorise what he was feeling which helped a little but not overly. He was angry that two of his friends had been attacked at once, frightened that he couldn't protect anyone from the threat, scared that he could lose more friends, happy that no one was dead yet, confused about the Basilik, tired physically and mentally, and yet too wired with emotions and thought processes to sleep. He was a mess mentally and it wasn't helping at all.

In an effort to fill his time and straighten out his mind Mateo penned a letter to his family but was unable to send it due to being stuck in the Ravenclaw tower, so he kept adding to it until he had practically written his every thought and suspicion about the matter down on paper. He knew that it would be blatantly obvious to his father that he was angry, upset, worried, and liable to act irrationally to get answers. But he needed something to do whilst hanging around waiting so he didn't care, by the time Garuda would have delivered the letter in three or so days either there would be answers or he would have calmed down enough to be rational once more.

When lunch time rolled around he was tempted to stay in the dormitories but his stomach protested at that idea so he reluctantly slipped down into the common room. By now the fact that three of their house mates were missing had become apparent to those in the common room, Penelope should have had a free lesson at that time and no one had seen her, so Mateo's housemates knew exactly what was troubling him. He was immensely grateful when the fifth years near the fire didn't ask him any questions but merely offered to walk with him to lunch and he silently nodded in response to their offer. When they reached the Great Hall he automatically headed to the spot that the second years usually claimed and put a few pieces of food on his plate and attempted to eat a decent amount.

The rest of his year arrived shortly after he did and although they seemed to already know of the attack to see evidence of their friend's absence made the whole situation real. So it was quite a glum gathering of ten second years on the Ravenclaw table, although Mateo felt surprisingly comforted by their silent company. The rest of their house was similarly subdued by the loss of three of their number so most of the room respectfully left them alone. Apart from one who seemed determined to stick his nose in everywhere.

"So I hear there were more attacks?" Draco said quite loud enough to draw the attention of some specific ravens.

"Yeah, Granger, Entwhistle, and Clearwater," an older Slytherin grunted at him.

"Not fatal I assume?"

"No, apparently they are up in the Hospital Wing with the others," another responded.

"Shame, this school would have been better off with three less mudbloods," Draco snickered.

However his laughter turned into a rather undignified and rather feminine yelp as a knife span past his head, centimetres from his ear, and buried itself into the wood behind him.

"You're very close to going too far Draco," Mateo growled.

"You could have killed me!" Draco squeaked indignantly.

"I could have if I wanted to, however I was intentionally aiming to the side of your head. Dead people can't really learn from their mistakes can they?" Mateo said slowly as if talking to an idiot.

"You're not going to get away with that," Draco said angrily.

"We'll see, I have just had two friends petrified and you're the one talking about unsuccessful murder. Of the two of us I think you are the one who should really be careful about their actions as the professors are really getting desperate to find the perpetrator of the attacks. You are certainly more suspicious than I am now," Mateo said with a cold smile on his face.

Draco's reserve seemed to falter as the two engaged in a battle of wills, Mateo's smiling and unblinking face became a rather frightening thing to gaze at for too long. Once the Slytherin turned away from the Ravenclaw with a forced scoff of indifference Mateo returned his attention to his food although he had no appetite now. Slowly the conversations resumed around the room although many were keeping an eye out for some kind of punishment to be given for Mateo's outburst. However it seemed that even Snape was on the Ravenclaw's side as no one at the head table made a move to call him out on his rather dangerous use of table cutlery.

Facing three more hours of solitude Mateo gave up and went to get his book bag and went off to Herbology. He arrived alone and received a disapproving glance from Professor Sprout but he ducked his head in apology and slid into a spare seat. Neville had not appeared so he was attached to Stephen and Anthony for the session and as much as he tried to pay attention Mateo doubted that he would recall much of what they covered that lesson.

The same pretty much followed for the next few days except Neville returned the day after the attacks. The teachers had sensibly split them up when practical work was done to ensure that at least one alert student was in each pair to avoid accidents. However Snape banned them from actively brewing for that week to ensure he did not face melted cauldrons or multiple injuries requiring attention in the Hospital Wing.

After a couple of days Mateo mostly snapped out of his mood and managed to return to some semblance of normality, and with a bit of encouragement Neville followed him. The constant lack of their two friends made trying to act normal impossible as every meal and lesson was quieter without them, however the two remaining boys struggled on.

But then a week later, on the 21st of May, as they were walking between History of Magic and Transfiguration a loud announcement had the Prefect leading them change direction and returned them all to their dormitories. Mateo waved goodbye to Neville as the lions were dropped off first before they swung back to their tower where most of the rest of their house were gathered. Pretty much everyone was gathered in loose groups chatting worriedly about the latest development. It was pretty much taken as given that there had been another attack, but the change in how the situation was handled was causing concerns over whether a student had actually died this time. There were certainly a few relieved looks when a headcount was taken and everyone raven still standing was accounted for.

When the conversations deteriorated into discussing theories as to who had been attacked Mateo slunk out of the common room and headed for his bed, he was not interested in such morbid topics. There were way too many Muggleborn students who could have been the unlucky one to be attacked, and listing every single one of them by name did nothing to help the situation.

However before Mateo was able to slump down on his bed he noticed a parcel placed squarely in the middle of the covers. The silver wrapping paper was closer to a plastic bag in look than paper, but it rustled as Mateo picked it up. Underneath the deceptively weighty parcel was an envelope so the youth quickly opened that before considering touching the silver wrapping paper.

 _You're father left this in my possession before he died.  
I believe it is time it was returned to you.  
Use it well._

No further explanation was given, so Mateo gingerly placed the parcel on the bed and stayed standing to unwrap it, just in case it was a trick. However nothing attacked him and no magical hex shot out of the bundled fabric inside. Once he was sure he was safe Mateo picked up the fabric inside and noticed that it seemed to be nothing more than a silky drape more suited to being hung by a window. However there was a definite tie for fastening the item around a neck, along with a very deep hood. He correctly guessed it was some kind of very large cloak more suited to a tall and broad adult than a twelve year old, even if he was taller and more muscular than most of his year.

With a twirl of his arms the cloak was settled on his shoulders and Mateo strode over to the mirror in the bathroom to see how he looked in the curtain-cloak. The sight that greeted him though almost had him yelping in surprise: there was a thin slit of his body showing where the cloak had not been wrapped completely around his chest, and his head was still visible, but he couldn't see the rest of his body. With slightly trembling hands he flipped the hood up and pulled the cloak tight to him, and he grinned in amazement as his entire reflection disappeared.

' _Use it well?_ ' Mateo thought as he tested out the properties of the cloak.

Apparently he remained solid and could still make sound but he was completely invisible, and the cloak actually scrunched up to a reasonably small size. After half an hour of playing with the thing he carefully slid it into his empty book bag and headed down into the common room. If they had not had any further news Mateo thought that he could perhaps attempt to visit Neville to check whether the Gryffindors had had better luck. He was pretty certain that the Basilisk would not likely be able to see through the cloak so sense of smell would be its only way of finding him. And if it did then he would probably be safe from death as he would be gazing through the cloak, at least Mateo hoped he was right.

The common room was pretty much completely silent when he reached it, and Mateo would definitely bet all his funds on the fact they knew who had been taken. He found the fifth years he had gone to lunch with last week and approached them to find out the news.

"Ginny Weasley," one of them answered his questioning look.

So that was why everyone was so grim, it seemed that even the Purebloods weren't safe from the beast behind the attacks and they all knew it. Perhaps only those safe from attack were the Slytherins themselves, maybe even if someone agreed with that house's ideologies they could still be targeted for not being extreme enough to warrant being a snake. Mateo wasn't idiotic enough to believe only the Slytherins were the ones to support Voldemort during his reign, or that all the Slytherins could be painted with the same brush, but he did doubt that the Basilisk could tell the difference.

He was glad that he hadn't immediately approached his friendship group after hearing the news, it would have made slipping out of the common room that much harder. As it was he already had to slip away from the group of fifth years to a secluded corner near the door. Once there he looked around for a suitable distraction, and found it in a bottle of ink left abandoned on a table near the fire. It was the work of a moment to draw his wand and silently cast the levitation charm needed to send said ink bottle into the fire.

Whilst everyone was looking at the hissing and spurting fireplace Mateo threw his new invisibility cloak over himself, wrenched the door open and span through. Despite having to move speedily he made sure that whilst he was shutting it quickly behind himself he did so to avoid it slamming. He didn't hang around for anyone to follow him and quickly made his way down the spiral staircase to the corridors below. Only after a few twists and turns did he slow down slightly and started thinking.

Half of him wanted to go to the Gryffindor common room and comfort Ron, but then he had his brothers around him so Mateo would just be getting in the way. He didn't have the first clue as to how it felt losing a sibling, the closest thing he could lose was his father, and that was in an entirely different league. The only thing he could do to comfort Ron would be to get Ginny back.

Logically there had to be an opening for the Chamber of Secrets to be _opened_ , and for a way for the Heir and the Basilisk to enter/exit from. And if the Heir was as stupid as any villain in the movies Mateo had watched with the Avengers then it shouldn't be hard to find. All he had to go on so far was the writing on the wall, so Mateo headed as fast as he could, whilst making little or no noise, down to the corridor.

Once he was there the boy stayed still and silent whilst he thought over the situation as quickly as he could. The first attack had been here and all the writing, including the newest sentence, was also located here. If he was lucky then whoever was opening the Chamber had kept things pretty close to home whilst they were experimenting the first time. It would be harder get caught if your escape route was close by, easily accessible in case someone threatened to stumble across you and your activities.

There was a fresh mosaic of puddles in the hallway and Mateo almost dismissed them, until he stopped and thought about it. This corridor had been clean yesterday, he distinctly remembered walking past it to breakfast and not seeing any water. Filch was keeping a close eye on the specific strip of castle, as a way of trying to catch the criminal red handed the next time they wrote a message.

Cautiously Mateo walked to the door on the corner whilst trying not to trail his cloak in the water. He was curious as to how so much water had made it out of the bathroom and into the corridor, none of the other bathrooms flooded half as often. Had the day been like any other he would have been wary about walking into a female bathroom but at least the morbid events were working in his favour.

Like the corridor outside the room was dark and abandoned. The water lay flat in a sheen over the cobblestones rather than gathering in pools and channels, a testament to the lack of use. It was a subtle hint to Mateo that he might be on the right track, someone would notice something different in a regularly used room. He kept the invisibility cloak on as he silently tiptoed around the room looking for some hint to lead him on. He failed to discover anything though and he sighed in frustration.

"Who's there?" a light and childish voice asked.

Mateo bit his lip and stayed completely still, he couldn't believe that another student was out of their common room at the same time as him. And in the same bloody bathroom too!

But when a pearlescent figure floated through a wall he relaxed his frozen body slightly, a ghost he could deal with. He had had very little interaction with these residents of the castle beyond a few polite words to any he met in the corridors. It was not that he feared the ghosts, what was there to fear in beings with no physical body to hurt you with? However Mateo had encountered enough folklore and superstition surrounding ghosts that he could never be fully comfortable around them whilst at Hogwarts.

He was unsurprised to not recognise the girl ghost then seeing as he never really attempted to learn their names beyond the four house ghosts. But something that did strike him was the fact that this ghost was dressed in robes very similar to his own. They were decidedly dated but there was no mistaking the raven crest on her chest. She looked like she had probably been halfway through her education when she had been killed, and even without knowing her Mateo guessed she had been unpopular from the rather unattractive glasses and acne. With no way of progressing in his investigation Mateo made the decision to reveal himself to her and hope she did not shoot off to find someone.

"Please don't tell anyone I'm here," Mateo said as soon as he had tugged the invisibility cloak off.

"Boys aren't allowed in here," the girl snapped apparently automatically.

"It doesn't really matter today, you must have heard everyone being sent back to their common rooms?" Mateo pointed out as he shrunk the cloak and put it in his pocket.

"And yet you are here," the ghost said curiously, "why is that?"

"I want to try to find the Chamber of Secrets, the student taken is a friend and I want her back," Mateo said honestly.

"Every teacher for the past fifty years at some point has tried to find that Chamber, I know I've watched them. Why would you do better?" she asked.

"Because I am not a teacher," Mateo pointed out.

"That is no reason," the ghost pouted.

"I just hope I'm going to be successful," Mateo laughed at how the ghost was acting as if he had cheated her out of the greatest secret of the century… which he had. "I'm afraid I don't actually know your name."

"You haven't heard of me?" said the ghost in surprise.

"Should I have?"

"I thought everyone talked about Moaning Myrtle, I've heard the girls whispering about me if they ever come in here. They treat me like some zoo exhibit to gawk at," Myrtle said angrily.

"Well I never listen to rumours, there are enough about me that I've learnt that the best way to deal with them is to ignore any of them," Mateo admitted. "And it's nice to meet you Myrtle, I think you're the first ghost I've spoken to."

"Really?" the admission seemed to cheer the girl up a bit and she almost smiled.

"Now, I need to keep on looking but we can keep chatting if you want?" Mateo offered as he started looking more closely at various parts of the room.

"So you're looking for the Chamber of Secrets?" Myrtle asked, and waited for Mateo's hum of confirmation. "Why are you looking in here?"

"Because of the writing outside of the door, and the fact cat was attacked out there. And as you said very few come in here, it seems like quite a good place to hide something important," Mateo finished inspecting the wall by the door and started checking the stalls on one side of the room.

However he suddenly stopped and turned to look at the ghost that had perched on the rim of the big circular window at the far end of the stalls. "Hang on, you've been at this school for fifty years?"

"Yes," Myrtle sniffled unhappily at being reminded.

"Then you must have been attending the school as a student when the Chamber was last opened. Do you know anything about the last time it happened?" Mateo asked eagerly.

"I know a student was killed," Myrtle said shortly.

"You were killed by the Basilisk?" Mateo put the pieces together quickly and stared at the ghost in amazement.

"I don't know if it was a Basilisk, but I was in here crying because Olive Hornby had been teasing me again when I heard a boy come in and start hissing at something. I left the stall to tell him to go away and I saw a pair of huge orange eyes, and I died," Myrtle recounted with relish.

"Please, where was the boy and the snake? Where exactly were they?" Mateo asked.

"Over there," Myrtle waved vaguely to the circular bank of sinks sitting the in the middle of the room.

Mateo eagerly ran over to them and started to inspect each tap, mirror, and sink. It was just his luck that he had worked all the way round the feature only to find a snake engraved on the taps to the right of where he had started looking. The engraving was small but quite well detailed, as if whoever had done it had wanted to hide their work but refused to put anything less full effort into their workmanship.

Gingerly he tried turning the tap but no water came out.

"It's never worked, I don't know why they don't fix it," Myrtle chipped in helpfully but rather belatedly.

"Perhaps no one thought to report it? They aren't exactly short of other taps to use," Mateo gestured around himself to the other sinks.

Myrtle shrugged in neutral agreement and Mateo turned back to the sink to think. "If the Chamber of Secrets was only supposed to be opened by the Heir then it stands to reason that Salazar wouldn't want anyone accidentally opening it. So perhaps it requires a password?"

"So you're going to stand there all night talking to a tap?" Myrtle giggled at the thought.

"Of course not. Use your brains Myrtle, you were in my house too," Mateo said.

"I've not had to think much recently, haunting Olive didn't take much effort and there aren't many who talk to me," Myrtle retorted unhappily.

" _Open,_ " Mateo hissed to the tap instead of replying to Myrtle.

He was rewarded with the sink suddenly scraping backwards an inch before dropping into some hidden recess in the ground. Slowly the other sinks and their stone wall followed suit until a rather big and ominous black hole was created.

"One entrance to the Chamber of Secrets I think," Mateo said to himself as he stood on the very edge and tried to look down to see the bottom.

"How did you do that?" Myrtle screeched in amazement and possibly fear.

However Mateo didn't get to ask her which, as her sudden shriek from behind him and caused him to jump in surprise, and he overbalanced and fell into the hole. He didn't have much time to worry though as his head quite quickly met stone and he fell into darkness.


	46. Chapter 46 - Pitch Black

**A/N: Hello, so this was supposed to go out yesterday but I accidentally fell asleep on the sofa instead! Work is mental at the moment so I have a tendency to end up dozing in the evenings.**

 **We've passed two new milestones now people! 3K favourites, 4K follows! Thank you all people, you're amazing and it keeps me smiling and determined to finish this!**

* * *

 **Chapter Forty Six – Pitch Black**

He couldn't remember falling asleep on top of a desk, but Mateo couldn't think of anywhere else where he could have fallen asleep that would be this uncomfortable. He had quite a few quills poking him in the back, and there was some parchment rustling under his legs that was making unwelcome noise. He tried to move his head to a more comfortable position and was gifted with a bolt of pain shooting through his skull and down his neck.

"I wondered if you were dead, you could have shared my toilet if you were," an unwelcomingly high pitched voice said.

"Myrtle?" Mateo groaned as he tried to pry an eye open.

"Boy," Myrtle said in reply.

"How long have I been out?" Mateo asked as he succeeded in opening his eyes.

He was relieved to see a complete lack of light around him which made recovering from a head wound easier. Slowly details started to materialise around him, illuminated by some gloomy light source further away. The annoying items Mateo had mistaken for quills and parchment turned out to be the skeletons of various small rodents that had for some reason accumulated at the bottom of the hole.

"Delightful," Mateo groaned again and very gingerly sat up. Once upright he noticed the absence of his new ghost acquaintance. "Myrtle?"

"I'm still here," Myrtle said as she partially appeared through the wall in front of Mateo.

"Are you alright?" Mateo noticed the bashful look on her face.

"Sorry for scaring you," her apology reminded the boy about how he got to the bottom of the pit.

"It's alright I needed to get down here anyway," Mateo said with a wry grin and gingerly prodded the top of his head and winced.

"It's a very big lump," Myrtle said helpfully.

Mateo had already guessed that from the pain but he hummed in agreement before reaching for a packet of painkillers in the pouch at his right hip. It was the first time he really had to use any of the contents on himself, so there were plenty of painkillers in there. The only things missing were the potions that he had used on the unicorn last year, and as Tony and Bruce still didn't know about it Mateo hadn't been able to replace them. He hoped he wouldn't pay for that decision this night, he doubted he would come out of the next few hours unscathed. However there was a surprising amount of medication in the bag, so he should still be covered for pretty much every situation, up to and including severe blood loss.

After swallowing one Vicodin dry he gingerly pushed himself to his feet, and then had to pause to let the swell of pain in his head ease. Using the limited light available Mateo looked around and turned to face the most likely way to go. Considering he was now in the home territory of a very old and very murderous snake he was rather reluctant to light his wand.

"Well I think it is safe to assume that the biggest tunnel is the best way to go," Mateo said as he started to walk towards it. However he didn't get very far before he stopped and turned around, "aren't you coming?"

"Me?" Myrtle said in surprise.

"Who else would I invite? We can trade riddles until I find something, like a basilisk or the missing student. It's pretty grim down here so I could use some company. Plus, and sorry if this is insensitive, you are a really useful light source," Mateo said.

Mateo winced and prepared himself for Myrtle's angry outburst, and was incredibly grateful when none was forthcoming. He relaxed and smiled encouragingly at her. "So, are we going?"

"You start with a riddle," Myrtle said, and Mateo thought he saw a glimmer of happiness in the ghost's eyes before he turned and started walking.

"Hmmm a riddle… How about this: Four stiff standers, four dilly-danders, two lookers, two crookers, and a wig-wag. What am I?"

Myrtle proved to have quite a shrewd and quick mind once she had gotten into the swing of riddle solving once more, and Mateo almost started to forget that they were potentially walking towards a suicidal situation.

He was in the middle of trying to solve a riddle Myrtle had posed when he saw a suspicious mound ahead of them. He quickly flailed a hand at Myrtle before diving behind a handy stalagmite in case it was the great snake. Mateo waited with bated breath for as long as he could before he carefully exhaled and gingerly edged around the rock. Whatever he had spotted remained as still as a statue, so Mateo guessed he was safe.

Boy and ghost slowly approached the shape and both were surprised and slightly terrified at the sight of the enormous shed skin. The beast had easily been twenty metres long at the time that it had shed this particular layer of skin, which made Mateo shudder at the thought of the snake being even larger than that.

"Myrtle, if I die can you pass on a message to Professor Flitwick to send to my Dad?" Mateo asked as he edged around the shed skin, whilst Myrtle floated straight through it.

"You could just become a ghost and see him after this," Myrtle suggested.

"Sorry but not going to happen, I have no one to haunt and no unfinished business. Well, none that could be solved as a ghost," Mateo declined, "well?"

"Yes I will, what do you want to say?"

"Just I'm sorry that I was an idiot and failed, and that I'm very glad he adopted me," Mateo kept it short. "He'll know the rest of it."

Myrtle nodded that she had got the message but refrained from answering, which Mateo was grateful about as he didn't want to have to deal with someone poking fun at him at the moment.

With the light of the ethereal being next to him Mateo was able to pick out trip hazards as the tunnel phased even more from worked stone to cave and the floor became even more uneven. After perhaps ten minutes of slow and careful walking they came to a huge circular metal door with wrought metal snakes set onto the door.

"Just in case we hadn't already figured out that Salazar built this," Mateo muttered and was surprised to hear a snort of laughter from the ghost next to him.

Once more he hissed at the door and was glad to find that the same order garnered a reaction from the enchanted door. When the door swung open he slowly approached the entryway and looked through to the room beyond. Even if he completely disagreed with Salazar's persecution of the Muggleborns, Mateo couldn't really dispute that the man had an eye for dramatic settings.

A central stone pathway led from the door to a carved face at the far end of the room. Flanking the room were numerous carved serpent heads, eternally posed as if about to strike the person walking down the path. Water flowed around the carved heads, and smaller tunnels seemed to lead off from the room. The pool situated around the carved head looked like it could be a lot deeper than the ankle deep lakes near Mateo. Near said deep pool was a prone figure, dressed in black robe with red hair flaring out around her.

"Ginny!" Mateo hissed as he climbed down the short ladder and ran down the room.

The worst of the pain in his head had been alleviated by the drugs a while back in the tunnels so Mateo wasn't reluctant to flat out run to the fallen girl. The adrenaline coursing through his veins from the scary setting and the elation of finding Ginny masked the pain as he fell to his knees next to her body.

Habit kicked in and he quickly checked for a pulse, and found a rather worryingly slow but even beat, before scanning for any obvious injury. He couldn't find any reason for the girl to be unconscious as there was no head or neck injury, she seemed by all rights to just be asleep.

As he checked her over he could see that Ginny hadn't been petrified like the other students in the Hospital Wing. She had a tangible pulse, and her skin was slightly warmer than Hermione's had been. However she was just as pale as the other victims which worried the Ravenclaw. He desperately tried to awaken the Gryffindor, first by firmly tapping her face, then pinching her ears. Neither attempt garnered any reaction. Mateo was about to give up and carry the girl out of there when he heard a new voice speak out.

"She won't wake," Mateo turned to look at the boy who stood behind him.

He was surprised he hadn't heard the newcomer arrive, but once Mateo started to look more carefully at the other boy he realised why he had been caught unawares. Like Myrtle, the other youth was wearing quite dated robes and seemed to be a bit too pale to be believably alive. The pale light filtering from somewhere above the head statue failed to cast a shadow behind the boy. Whoever he was, certainly wasn't a ghost but he wasn't quite human.

"And why not?" Mateo asked.

"Because I do not wish her to," the boy answered simply. "While she sleeps, I live."

"How can you have command over the living? You are just an image, or if you are alive you really need to go and get some sunlight," Mateo quipped.

"I am a memory," the boy lectured in an irritated tone, "preserved in a diary for fifty years."

Mateo then noticed the leather bound book loosely held in Ginny's grip and his eyes narrowed as he started putting the pieces together. It was quite an innocent looking thing, slightly worn as if it had been carried around a lot, but nothing suggested it was anything more sinister than merely a diary.

Whoever this person was had possibly done the same thing as Voldemort and had split their soul, keeping one part in the diary. Mateo wasn't sure that there was more than one Slytherin running around with a less than intact soul, so he decided to try something.

"So who are you that you managed to keep yourself alive in a diary? It's pretty impressive magic," Mateo hated complementing the person killing Ginny but he had to know.

"Very few people have the ability to pursue such magic," the boy said smugly. "My name is Tom Riddle but I doubt you will have heard that name. I know you will have heard of my more impressive title: Lord Voldemort."

Mateo kept his politely enquiring mask on, but inside he was fighting to keep his cool. This diary was another part of the monster that had killed his parents and the only reason that the man was out there somewhere instead of being dead as any normal person would have been.

"You certainly left an impression on Wizarding society," Mateo said neutrally.

"You do not seem happy to know who I am… Who are you?" Tom asked suspiciously.

"Oh I'm a no one," Mateo shrugged modestly.

"Well to have gotten here you would have to be more than a nobody. In fact there is possibly only one who would be able to get down here," Tom stared at him as intensely as Professor Snape stared at the most accident prone in his classes.

It would have made Mateo nervous if he hadn't also been speared by such glares from Nat when he and Hawkeye had been caught making mischief. Being glared at by Snape as well had dulled the impact of such an expression. The only reason being glared at by the memory caused Mateo to pause was that he knew that this was the young Voldemort.

"And who would that be?" Mateo asked politely as he turned his concentration back to the deadly verbal dance he was engaged in.

"You are Mateo Banner. Ravenclaw second year, top of your class, best seeker this school has seen for many years… And a Mudblood," Tom spat.

"THE Mudblood if you talk to some of the Slytherins. Not that it makes much of a difference but I thought you might be pleased to learn that the one who is going to stop you isn't your average Muggleborn student," Mateo clarified.

"You?! You think that you can stop the Heir of Slytherin?" Tom laughed, and Mateo was not surprised that the sound sent shivers up his spine. Everything about this boy seemed unnatural, and the Ravenclaw student doubted that it was just a product of him being a memory. He made a mental note to question Myrtle about young Tom Riddle at a later date, if he survived the night.

"Seeing as you are feeding off of Ginny like a parasite then I wonder if you have seen her memories? If you have then you should know that the original you was beaten by a child barely a year old. I'd say that is more shameful than being beaten by a baby than a Mudblood," Mateo baited the Slytherin. "If a baby can defeat you then I reckon I stand a good chance of owning your ass."

"Would you bet your life on this?" Tom said angrily and he span to look at the carved face.

" _Listen to me Salazar, greatest of the Hogwarts Four!_ " Tom hissed in Parselmouth.

In response to his summons the mouth of the carved human head opened up to reveal darkness behind it, and Mateo was not happy to hear rustling coming from the statue. As soon as he saw something move inside the mouth Mateo dropped his eyes down and squinted to reduce the chance of making eye contact. The following splash and rasping was quite disconcerting for the almost blind Mateo as he couldn't tell how big the snake was. He already knew it was too large for hist tastes from the shed skin they had seen earlier in the tunnels.

He carefully backed up as he drew his wand and tried to think up any spells that would be of use in the upcoming battle. However he knew that basilisks had very thick skin like a troll so the majority of his minor spells were useless, which left him with only a few spells that could possibly be useful.

A loud trilling call had Mateo almost opening his eyes fully and looking up, but he resisted the urge and tried to gauge what was happening on sound alone. Something soft but reasonably weighty hit him on the top of the head before a screeching sound, not unlike a parrot squawking in indignation, filled the air. A few seconds later loud hissing and an increase in the rasping sound of the snake moving drowned out the majority of the squawking.

"That bloody bird!" Tom shouted angrily.

Mateo dared to open his eyes a bit further and was surprised to see a phoenix darting around the head of the snake and occasionally swooping in for a sharp jab at its eyes. With a start Mateo realised what he had done and almost slammed his eyelids shut, but then he realised that he had looked at the basilisk's face and had survived. He looked more carefully at the scene in front of him and realised that the giant snake had blood pouring from the indentations where its eyes had been. The phoenix had blinded it, and in so doing had saved Mateo the worry of being petrified or killed outright through merely a gaze.

" _Stop flailing around, you can still smell him. Kill him!_ " Tom roared to his beast.

Mateo quickly scooped up the fabric bundle that had been left at his feet and hurried to the water where he hoped his scent would be masked a tiny bit. It seemed that the phoenix had done all it could and had disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, leaving Mateo alone to deal with a murderous memory, and an enraged and only slightly incapacitated basilisk.

"I could really do with some more help right around now," the Ravenclaw muttered to himself as he constantly moved location to avoid the questing snake.

Almost as soon as he had said that it felt as if the fabric in his hand became a lot heavier. Mateo was inclined to ignore the feeling in favour of carrying on moving and staying alive, as he knew a moving target was harder to hit. But the niggling hope that his wish had been answered had him ducking into one of the tunnels nearby and finding a small nook to tuck into. Once reasonably safe he looked at the bundle of cloth in his hand, lit well enough by the light reflecting off the water, and was surprised to find that it was the Sorting Hat.

"No offence but I don't see how a hat is supposed to help me," Mateo murmured as he turned it around to face the face of the hat as if expecting an answer.

Feeling foolish he looked inside the hat and thought he could almost see something in the depths of the hat, so Mateo took a breath and put his hand inside the hat. Banner was unaware that his eyes widened in surprised as he felt his fingers brush against something cold like metal. With a bit of fumbling he managed to find something that felt like a handle and gingerly pulled on it until the object slid free of the deceptively small hat. It took him a few seconds to fully understand the fact that he was standing there with a sword in his right hand, the hat still in his left.

"Well it might not be a rabbit but it's certainly much more useful. Thanks," Mateo almost laughed at the madness of his position but he refrained from doing so.

The basilisk had been obligingly absent so far but Mateo knew that wouldn't last, and for him and Ginny to leave he would have to deal with it. Thinking of the ginger Gryffindor had Mateo realising that he was on a very tight schedule, if he left it too long Tom would take her life to regain his physical presence. Although Ginny's heart had been reasonably strong when he had checked her Mateo was under no illusion that it would have gotten anything but worse since then. He had to finish this, and quickly.

Mateo did a mental run down of his situation and what he had to work with and decided that open confrontation in the main chamber would be suicidal. Snakes could bite with no run up so to speak, but if it had space to rear and strike the basilisk could kill him just by crushing him with its jaws. His best bet was probably to face it in this tunnel and try to pierce its head with the sword he had been given. He hadn't had the time to inspect it but he could feel that it was different to the normal kind of swords he had practiced with when he had dabbled in fencing against Nat two summers ago. He could almost feel that it was magical, and he hoped that would work in his favour.

In order to attract the snake Mateo tucked the Sorting Hat into his belt and scrabbled around with his left hand for some rocks and came across a couple of rat skulls, which he threw against the metal bars that had blocked off his little nook to make enough noise. Just as he had wanted he heard the snake thrash around somewhere far off and the sound of the rasping slither increased as the basilisk approached his location.

He had to fight the urge to snap his eyes shut as he spotted the snout of the basilisk appear at the end of the tunnel and instead he focussed on getting ready. For a life or death situation Mateo's plan was woefully underdeveloped, so far he knew he was going to stab the snake and that was as far as he had gotten.

It seemed that Lady Luck had decided to grace Mateo with some of her gifts as the basilisk continued to proceed down the tunnel with its head held low to the ground, its tongue tasting Mateo's scent from when he had run down the pipe. Mateo had a sudden flash of inspiration and with no better plan forthcoming he acted on the new idea. He ran towards the snake, using a couple more rocks and skulls to create more sound than his clattering feet to disorientate the beast, and very carefully jumped up so that his feet landed just on the basilisk's head in front of its eyes. He ran slightly down its neck before turning and jabbing the sword into the crown of the basilisk's head and ensured that the sword was at a slight angle. As Mateo had anticipated, the snake reared in protest of something daring to stand on it, and also out of pain of the sword nicking its skin.

He wouldn't have been strong enough to pierce through skin and skull to kill the snake. However, the beast's own power was more than sufficient for the task as it reared and slammed the pommel of the sword on the roof of the tunnel. The basilisk's head immediately slumped back to the floor as it was killed instantly.

But even as its head fell still its body started writhing in its death-throes. The long length of muscle and bone slammed repeatedly into every side of the narrow tunnel, gouging small chips of stone off the walls. With nothing to grip on the basilisk's back Mateo was thrown to the side and shouted in pain as his head made contact with the wall for the second time in an hour.

Mateo's memory of the next few minutes was a jumble of pain and scales as he first tried to crawl away from the body, and then just gave up and tried to protect his neck and back from any severe damage. Eventually the behemoth ceased moving and Mateo dared to attempt to move, although he had no idea how he would get out. The basilisk's flailing around had manoeuvred Mateo so that his legs and left arm were trapped underneath its body, but thankfully his right arm was free. Even more fortuitous was the fact Mateo could just about reach his wand, so after a while of gentle wriggling he pulled the wood free. Moving caused some significant pain in his lower ribs but as he was still alive Mateo didn't really count that as bad luck.

" _Wingardium leviosa,_ " Mateo muttered and the body lying on top of him shifted slightly.

Carefully he forced the body to roll and lie against the other wall, freeing him. However being free meant he slid down the wall to the floor and caused him to cry out in pain from his injuries.

He guessed that at least the tibia and fibula were likely shattered, probably his patella and femur were broken too, which would have also resulted in his muscles being shredded. As it was he could just about see in the dim light that his foot was pointing in the wrong direction, and it took all of his will power to not pass out or vomit. The only good thing about the injury that no bone had broken through the skin, so at least if any bleeding did occur it would stay within the limb.

Part of him wanted to just lie there and cry, and to be honest it was only because another life relied on him that Mateo swallowed back bile and forced himself to act. Reaching the pouch at his right hip was much easier than his wand, and he fiddled around for the vials at the bottom. He knew which ones he needed, so he didn't even need to look at the labels to find which to swallow. In quick succession he swallowed a vial of bone mender, and the strongest pain potion that Tony had been able to find. It was an experimental mix, and Mateo knew that it would completely numb his entire body. Such an act was dangerous, and he had to be careful to not injure himself further otherwise he risked unknowingly killing himself.

The sensation of not feeling any of his extremities was extremely disconcerting to Mateo. His fingers felt like he was wearing rubber gloves, and even his lips had reduced sensation. But it served its purpose, and Mateo was able to start clawing his way back to the main chamber. He vowed that he would learn as soon as possible some kind paralysis spell for broken limbs, or local anaesthetic spell. All he knew at that moment was the total paralysis spell, and that was only for opponents and not for self use. So he just had to suck it up and focus on working his way forward using just his arms and left leg, as his right was completely useless.

Getting around the body of the basilisk took forever as Mateo tried to minimise the amount that he jostled his leg. It was an even more arduous task as he had first off had to travel in the wrong direction to reclaim the sword from the basilisk's head before turning around and crawling the length of the beast. The behemoth probably came close to twenty metres in length, and Mateo dreaded to think how much it had to eat to sate its hunger.

Tom was still standing in the same spot near Ginny when Mateo finally managed to crawl into the main chamber once more. Instead of paying attention to the condescending smirk on the memory's face Mateo focussed on the fact that he was making steady progress.

"You're pathetic," Tom spat at the slowly approaching figure.

"I just slayed a basilisk, I think I deserve a tiny bit of respect," Mateo gritted his teeth and pulled himself closer. He was within five metres of the Slytherin and Gryffindor.

"You may have slayed my pet but it does not matter, soon Ginny will be dead and Lord Voldemort will be alive once more," Tom said triumphantly.

"That's what you think," Mateo had finally reached Ginny's side and checked her pulse once more. He was glad to still feel one, but it was rather weak and erratic and Mateo was terrified that it would not continue for much longer.

"What are you going to do to stop me? You can't even stand," Tom smirked.

"You don't need to stand to land a killing blow," Mateo pointed out as he torturously raised the sword he had dragged along with him.

"You can't stab a memory, I thought even a mudblood would figure that out especially seeing as you are a Ravenclaw," Tom rolled his eyes and his voice took on a patronising tone.

"Who said anything about stabbing _you_?" Mateo asked innocently.

Before Tom had a chance to reply or react Mateo raised himself on his left arm and stabbed viciously down at the innocent little book lying on the other side of Ginny. The effect was instantaneous as Tom started screaming in rage and perhaps pain, if memories could indeed feel pain. At the same time the projection of the boy started to shimmer and disintegrate in an erratic pattern until the sixteen year old Tom Riddle was no more.

Whilst the light display was ongoing, the diary on the floor spurted ink from the hole in its pages, like blood from a wound. By the time Tom had disappeared and the Chamber was quiet once more there was positively a lake of ink spreading between where Ginny lay and the spot where Tom had stood.

Mateo looked back to the first year girl and was pleased to see that she had regained some colour and that he could see her pulse in her neck beating stronger than before. Ginny still looked rather pale and unhealthy, but no worse than Mateo could remember her looking earlier in the week. As he stared her eyelids fluttered a bit before they opened.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Mateo asked gently as her roving gaze darted around the room before landing on his face.

"Mateo?" Ginny said uncertainly.

"It's me, how are you feeling?" he pressed.

"How did you get down here?"

Mateo almost growled in frustration that she continued to avoid the question, so he pulled out his wand and muttered the spell to get the tip to light up. "Follow my wand with your eyes, I want to check for concussion or head trauma before we move."

Ginny did as she was told and once Mateo was satisfied she was alright he sheathed his wand again and rolled onto his back, which was more comfortable than trying to prop himself up on one arm.

"To answer your question I managed to figure out where the Chamber entrance was and came down here to rescue you," he said.

"Why would you do that?" Ginny's tone of surprise actually had Mateo looking at her in amazement. "I mean we aren't even friends."

"Well first off I couldn't face Ron ever again if I left you down here to die, and secondly I wouldn't let anyone die if I could stop it. Yeah we might not have said more than five words to each other but that shouldn't matter," Mateo said honestly.

" _He_ said that no one cared about me, apart from him," Ginny whispered, and Mateo's heart came close to breaking as he saw a tear escape her eye.

"Listen to me, Tom was a master of lies and deceit who managed to fool much wiser and older people than us. You're family cares about you deeply, and everyone in my common room was saddened to hear that you were the one who had been taken. So don't you dare think that you are unimportant, or unloved, or unnoticed, because that is just bullshit," Mateo said fiercely.

Ginny gave him a watery smile and almost seemed to laugh at the swearword. She looked a little happier than before so Mateo was glad that his words had been heard, so he turned his attention to more pressing matters.

"Right, now we just have to figure out how we are going to get out of here," he muttered and started looking round.

"Didn't you think of that before you came down here?" Ginny asked hesitantly as if she was reluctant to insult her rescuer.

"Honestly I would have gone and gotten a broom at least even if I hadn't got a teacher, but I just found the entrance and Myrtle accidentally startled me and I fell down it," Mateo said ruefully. "Ah that's it!"

"What's it?"

"Myrtle! You might want to cover your ears," Mateo advised before he took a deep breath and bellowed, "MYRTLE!"

Ginny winced as his voice echoed through the cavernous chamber and Mateo chuckled slightly as he found the reverberations of his voice amusing. As his voice died away he was slightly worried that he had been heard. The pair sat in silence for half a minute but the ghost was not obliging them by appearing.

"Alright plan B," Mateo muttered and tried to think quickly.

"Did you call me?" a timid voice asked quietly.

"Myrtle, you brilliant girl! Would you mind coming over here?" Mateo said with a smile threatening to crack his face.

The ghost appeared through the wall near to the entrance to the Chamber and slowly approached them. Mateo almost wanted to snap at her and tell her to hurry up but he kept his cool and tried to carry on looking genial to the shy ghost. Eventually the deceased stood in front of the two living humans and Mateo sighed happily.

"Myrtle this is Ginny, Ginny this is Myrtle. She was incredibly helpful in finding the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets and so helped save you," Mateo gritted his teeth.

"Thank you for helping Mateo to save my life," Ginny said in a quiet voice.

"You're not dead," Myrtle looked shocked at being thanked, and slightly proud of herself. She also seemed a little disappointed of the fact that both of them were alive.

With the ghost given a useful confidence boost Mateo decided that he had had enough. "Trust me the basilisk had a good go of trying to change that, and right now my leg isn't far off being designated as dead. Would you be so good as to go and find a professor, perhaps if you could go to Professor Flitwick? Can you could tell him to bring a couple of brooms to get us out of here, oh and perhaps to get Madam Pomfrey ready to take two more patients?"

"You want me to leave my bathroom?" Myrtle sounded worried at the thought.

"Trust me the majority of the school is empty as everyone is stuck in their common rooms so you won't bump into anyone. Professor Flitwick will likely be in his office or with the Headmaster. I would really appreciate it if you could subtly get him away from Dumbledore and only bring our head of house down here. I will settle for Professor McGonagall if Flitwick is stuck. You'll be fine Myrtle, you've proven how sly and sneaky you can be before remember?" Mateo said.

Myrtle seemed to perk up at that and she zipped off, leaving the living alone again.

"So are you friends with her now?" Ginny asked cautiously.

"I have no idea what to call our relationship, but I needed her help and it wasn't hard to gain it simply by being polite and kind to her. She actually has a very sharp mind too, we recited riddles to each other on the way through from the pipe to the Chamber," Mateo replied.

"What happened to your leg?" It seemed that the Weasley was terrified of being left to her own thoughts, or perhaps the silence that threatened to swallow them in this rather unappealing room.

Mateo was partially glad of the distraction, it helped him not focus on his leg so much. So he began talking and studiously avoided looking down, "I managed to get the basilisk to kill itself with the sword but I ended up getting crushed by it slightly as it died. It was a bit of a stupid plan but it avoided being poisoned by it so at least that is a slight win."

"Have you got any other injuries?" Ginny asked in concern.

"There's a rather impressive bump on the back of my head, and I think a couple of my ribs might be cracked, but the leg is the worst of it all," Mateo said after a quick little check of himself.

"What was it that you did with your wand earlier? Why did you ask me to follow the light?"

"It's a standard check for concussion, I wanted to make sure you had no head injury before I let you sit up and aggravate any potential wounds," he explained.

"Where did you learn to do that?"

"My dad…" And with that Mateo launched into various tales of their time travelling around the world and the kinds of cases they had.

As he talked Mateo surprised himself with how much he had learnt and how much he could remember of every case. It helped solidify his decision to look into becoming a healer in the future, once everything with Voldemort was settled.

He was also surprised at how easily he talked to Ginny, it was a friendship that he had never expected to be formed but she happily listened to him talk and sometimes shared stories from her own childhood. At some point during their wait for someone to come and rescue them Ginny ended up taking her cloak off and generously bundled it up under Mateo's head for comfort. In response Mateo conjured some small flames to keep them warm, and although the flickering shadows caused the carved snakes to look even more unsettling the light cheered them up slightly.

Eventually the faint echo of feet on stone alerted them to the fact that someone alive was approaching. Even though whoever it was could only help them Mateo couldn't help but tense up in readiness for a fight, which only served to aggravate his mangled leg further. He couldn't help let out a small whimper of pain and pretty much immediately regretted it for letting it out as Ginny tried to rub his head soothingly. He let her do so because to flinch would likely have caused more pain, and if it let Ginny feel like she was comforting him and was paying back any imagined debt she felt she had then so be it.

The faint glow that Myrtle produced helped to illuminate the small figure walking next to her. Mateo was incredibly grateful that the ghost had completed the task he had asked of her and that it wasn't one of the teacher's that would have just aggravated the situation.

"Didn't we have a conversation at the beginning of the first year about what behaviour was in keeping with the Ravenclaw house?" Professor Flitwick said in exasperation.

"I'm afraid I seem to be a pretty terrible Ravenclaw, Professor," Mateo grimaced.

"We can argue semantics later I think, right now we need to get you to the Hospital Wing," Filius cut short their debate when he noticed how much of an unnatural angle Mateo's right foot lay at.

"You won't hear me arguing sir," Mateo smiled tightly. The silence that had fallen over the last few minutes had allowed him to refocus on how bizarre he felt. It had also given him time to start worrying about the effects of the odd cocktail of potions and pills he had taken, and also whether his leg could be fixed.

After a quick check of Mateo's leg Flitwick froze it to avoid extra movement and helped the youth to mount one of three broomsticks he had brought with him. With the aid of the magical carved wood Mateo was much more mobile, and whilst he waited for Flitwick to help Ginny with her broom he quickly nipped away.

"What are you doing Mateo?" Ginny asked as she and the part goblin pulled up outside of the tunnel Mateo had disappeared in to.

"I have a hunch, and I think that I'm going to need a basilisk fang," he called back.

"Why do you need a fang?" Ginny asked curiously.

"It's a secret, but I'll tell you one day," Mateo winked conspiratorially at her.

The progress out was a lot quicker than when he had walked in with Myrtle, although Mateo couldn't say which journey had better company. Myrtle may have been a bit gloomy but she had been easy to distract with riddles. Ginny seemed incredibly upset and worried by her whole experience, while Professor Flitwick was subtly worrying about both the students with him. Mateo was rather sporadic in his contribution to the conversation the other two were trying to hold as he was distracted by the thought of how close to death he had come. He was also being as careful as possible to ensure he didn't knock his frozen leg into any stalagmite in the way. There was no threat of further damage so he didn't have to worry on that account but he wasn't prepared to be careless.

Finally they arrived at the bottom of the vertical pipe that led back into the school. Far above a faint light could be seen, announcing to the world that the Chamber of Secrets was still open for them to leave without hassle. The three of them didn't need any encouragement and they flew up towards the dawn.


	47. Chapter 47 - Dawn

**A/N: Hello, sorry I'm a day late again! Many thanks to all who have read and reviewed, and favourited and followed of course! This story is getting to the first page of the Avenger crossover class in terms of number of reviews, favourites, and follows! Way to go you guys, give yourselves a pat on the back! I honestly didn't realise how popular this story would be when I first started publishing it, and I thank you all for showing your appreciation of my work!**

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 **Chapter Forty Seven – Dawn**

Once they were back in the school Flitwick decided to save time by allowing them to fly straight from the bathroom up to the Hospital Wing.

"Don't tell anyone that I let you do that," Professor Flitwick said as they dismounted outside the doors to the medical room. Before they left the corridor he shrunk the brooms and hid them in his pocket once more.

They had barely pushed the doors opened and stepped inside before Madam Pomfrey descended upon them. Both Mateo and Ginny were whisked to separate beds and settled comfortably before the healer prepared to check the over. Professor Flitwick relieved Mateo of the sword and said that he would go and alert the Headmaster and Ginny's parents of her return.

"Sort Ginny out first, no doubt her brothers will want to see her as soon as they are given the good news. If she is checked first then it reduces the time they have to wait," Mateo insisted as soon as he saw the healer heading towards him.

"But you are the most severely injured so you should be tended first," Madam Pomfrey countered.

"I'm dosed up on a mixture of muggle and magical painkillers for the headache and I cannot move my leg to aggravate it further. Give me another potion or knock me out if you really are concerned about my condition, but I seriously am alright to wait," Mateo said stubbornly before hammering his point home. "Ginny is fine beyond exhaustion and emotional trauma, you'll have her checked in five minutes."

"You're sure of that?" Madam Pomfrey challenged, with an eyebrow raised.

"Certain," Mateo smiled and set about wriggling his cloak off and tossed it onto the chair next to his bed and carefully unlaced his boots. He assumed that he would be staying in the Hospital Wing for the night at least so he started getting comfy.

As he predicted Madam Pomfrey was back in five minutes with an approving look on her face. "You were right."

"My dad worked as a muggle healer for the five years I travelled with him, I picked up a few bits of knowledge here and there," Mateo said modestly.

"Miss Weasley's parents were brought to the school when we learnt she had been taken, undoubtedly they will be here soon to visit her. I know the Weasleys and they will more than likely insist on thanking you, would you be up for a quick visit from them? If not I can 'knock you out' as you put it and start fixing your bones while you sleep," Madam Pomfrey asked.

"If I fall asleep will it either affect my healing, or will it stop me getting mobbed by Mrs Weasley?" Mateo asked.

"It'll have no impact on your recovery, and I'm afraid Mrs Weasley will find you anywhere and thank you," Madam Pomfrey said wryly, displaying her dry sense of humour.

"Then I shall stay awake and save her the bother of having to chase me to America at the end of term," Mateo said with mock resignation.

"I have various potions for the swelling on your head, but I'm afraid there is nothing I can do to save the bone in your leg. I'll have to vanish it and regrow them from scratch, but at least the Skelegro will also fix your ribs at the same time. There is extensive damage to pretty much every muscle and tendon in your leg; I will not be surprised if you walk with a slight limp in the future even after I have healed the soft tissue. Magic may be incredibly helpful when fixing damage but there are limits on how effective it can be with extensive trauma. Also unfortunately the Skelegro is incompatible with pain potions. It is not going to be a restful night for you," Madam Pomfrey warned.

"I'll sleep when everything is healed, I assume I am going to be in here for at least a day whilst it heals so I can catch up on sleep when it stops hurting," Mateo said simply. The thought of being impeded by a limp was a blow, but at least he would walk again.

Madam Pomfrey then proceeded to vanish all the bones in his right leg before feeding him three potions, one for his head swelling, one for the torn muscles and one for blood replenishing as a precaution. Finally she passed him a cup of clear liquid poured from a rather ominous bottle shaped like a skeleton.

The final potion felt like needles piercing his skin as it went down his throat but he dutifully choked it all down in one go and passed her back the cup. As soon as it was back in her hand the mediwithc filled it with water to help wash away the taste and soothe his throat. With her administrations complete the healer cast a quick scourgify over the boy before passing him some pyjamas to change in to for the night. Before she left she set up some curtains around his bed for privacy for the duration of his stay.

Trying to worm his boneless leg into the trousers proved to be an interesting task but Mateo was grateful that he had both arms with which to tackle the challenge. Once he was dressed for bed Mateo carefully folded his clothes and neatly piled them on top of his cloak and set his wand on the bedside table. He was then left with nothing to do than to pay attention to the slowly increasing aching itch deep within his leg. Whether it was psychological or actual Mateo wasn't sure, but without a decent distraction he wasn't going to be able to ignore it.

As a time filler he slowly started twirling his wand in his fingers, focussing on first making its path a smooth run. Once he was evenly twirling it through his fingers he picked up the pace to increase dexterity. The game had been something he first started immediately after getting his own wand, but he had dropped it after a month or so. With no book to read or person to talk to Mateo was rather limited in his entertainment so he focussed on his little game and was surprised that he kept it up for at least five minutes. He only stopped when the Hospital Wing doors burst open and he heard the hurried approach of a number of feet.

"Ginny!" the female voice sounded so full of relief and joy that Mateo was glad that he had acted. The sheer amount of emotion in Mrs Weasley's voice was a dead giveaway of how tortured she had been over the disappearance of her daughter. Like he had said to the girl, there was no way he could have _not_ acted, but he would certainly have risked more to do it again to save another mother from the same heartbreak.

"Mum, Dad," Ginny said in an almost sob, and Mateo heard her slide from her bed and run to meet the newcomers. The chorus of noises from thumping feet to happy words of greeting told him that all the Gryffindor boys had also arrived to see their baby sister.

He politely tried to tune himself out of the emotional reunion and returned to his wand spinning. He was getting quite good at running it around and through the fingers on his right hand so he moved to trying it on his left hand to improve the dexterity of that hand. It took a lot more concentration so he was caught unawares when his curtains were pushed aside. He jumped quite impressively in surprise at the sound, which he smiled sheepishly at. He had been calm and collected in the Chamber of Secrets when facing the basilisk, and now jumped as violently as a child caught in the midst of raiding a biscuit tin.

"Good evening," Mateo said as he looked up with a polite smile on his face. "I guess you are Mr Weasley?"

The man facing him was quite tall and thin, with the patented ginger Weasley hair although he was balding slightly on top. The robes he wore were wrinkled as if he had worn them all day at work before coming to the school. As well as being wrinkled the clothes were in the same rather well-worn state as the Weasley kid's school robes.

Mr Weasley himself had a kind face and blue eyes that looked like they rarely would glare at someone, and right now they were almost overflowing with tears. The adult seemed to be forcing himself to stay back and refrain from launching himself at the boy. Mateo absentmindedly heard the clatter of many feet leaving the room and he guessed that the Weasley boys had been sent back to their dormitories for the night.

"You saved my daughter," Mr Weasley said faintly, as if still trying to take everything in, "how can we ever repay you?"

"There is no debt to repay, I only did what everyone else would have done if they had had the same information as I did," Mateo waved off the notion of a debt.

"Not even that popinjay Lockhart attempted it, don't try and shrug this off," Mr Weasley said fiercely.

"Sir there is nothing I want or could ask of you, I saw a few people lose their children in my travels and I could not sit idle at the thought of your family having to go through the same grief when I could prevent it. I only ask that you help Ginny find someone to talk through her experience and help her get through it. She has been through a very tough ordeal if the little I know is right, and sweeping it under the carpet will do her no good," Mateo said firmly.

"If there is ever anything you need then do not hesitate to ask," Mr Weasley said with a watery smile.

The Weasley patriarch had barely finished speaking when a smaller and plumper, but equally ginger, figure burst through the curtains and didn't hesitate to approach Mateo.

"Merlin bless you child!" Mrs Weasley said in a very heartfelt tone as she attacked Mateo with a hug.

He managed to mostly hide the pain that flared in his ribs but he saw Mr Weasley noticing the slight twinge of his eyes. Mateo very slightly shook his head to stop the man from worrying and not long after Mrs Weasley let go.

"How are you?" She asked in concern.

"Surprisingly alright apart from the head and the leg, but then the brilliant thing about magic is that I will be good as new by tomorrow evening," Mateo said with a smile.

"You're a very mature and brave boy," Mrs Weasley complimented him, "is there anything we can do for you?"

"Thank you for the offer ma'am but Mr Weasley has just extended the same offer… Although…" Mateo hesitated.

"Name it Mateo and we shall set to it right away," Mrs Weasley said.

"Would you mind finding out if there was some kind of reading material that I could have? Madam Pomfrey said that I was likely to not get much sleep tonight and I may get rather bored just sitting here waiting," Mateo smiled bashfully.

Mr Weasley laughed and ducked out of the cubicle to go in search of some books just as the Headmaster, and the four Head of Houses entered the Hospital Wing. Mateo observed their approach through the opening of his curtains.

"Miss Weasley, if you are up to it would you be willing to answer some questions?" Albus asked gently.

Mateo couldn't hear her reply but her appearance in his curtained off area told him of her answer. He very carefully shifted to one side of the bed and gestured for Ginny to sit on the bed by him and nodded for Mrs Weasley to sit next to her.

"If someone wants they can move my clothes and sit there, I'm afraid I was not expecting so many visitors when I threw them there," Mateo apologised.

"We shall not disturb you for long Mr Banner, we only wish to know what occurred tonight and then we shall leave you in peace," Albus said reassuringly.

"I couldn't find much school material but there are some potions books and a few on healing," Mr Weasley interrupted as he returned to the group.

"Thank you Mr Weasley, I'm certain I'll find something to catch my interest amongst them," Mateo said as he put the books on his bedside table.

"You are supposed to be resting," Professor Sprout said admonishingly.

"I am not participating in physical activities, and apparently regrowing your femur, tibia and fibula is not at all an enjoyable experience. There is also the severely cracked patella and a number of cracked ribs to fix too apparently, I've been told I am unlikely to sleep tonight Professor. So what better than to spend that time learning something new? I might be able to find a spell to use if I break a limb again in the future," Mateo explained.

Mrs Weasley was not looking pleased at his almost blasé way of facing the truth but she kept her silence and instead focused on making sure Ginny was alright. It was probably the tenth time she was checking in less than twenty minutes, but seeing as it was her own child the woman was allowed to do so. And Mateo was certain that Ginny was secretly happy to be showered with affection.

With the physical reassurance of her mother Ginny was gently coaxed into telling her part of the story, from finding the diary tucked into one of her textbooks at the beginning of the year to the slowly increasing gaps in her memory, to waking up in the Chamber of Secrets in a pool of ink when Mateo started to carefully check her for injuries.

The teachers did not look at her with judging eyes but rather either neutrally in the case of two particular males, and sympathy from the other three professors. With her tale done Professor Dumbledore turned his gaze to Mateo and asked him to continue.

"Hermione figured out that the attacker was a basilisk, which was why she was found with a mirror in her hand…" Mateo recounted his attempts to figure out how the beast was moving around and where the entrance to the Chamber was, then how he found said entrance. His discussion with Myrtle raised a few eyebrows, and he was grateful when no one mocked him for falling into the pipe rather than going of his own accord. The riddle session he had with Myrtle had Flitwick shaking his head in amusement, but then everyone's faces turned sombre when he recounted his talk with Tom Riddle, the appearance of the basilisk and his subsequent aid by a phoenix.

"I wondered where he had gone," Albus muttered, and then expanded when he caught Mateo's confused glance. "I am privileged to have a phoenix in my office, and Fawkes unexpectedly flew off two hours ago. I didn't realise that he took the Sorting Hat with him, but now I understand why he did so."

"It was so that I could have a weapon to fight with," Mateo explained and finished off his narration of pulling the sword from the hat, killing and almost being killed by the basilisk, and finally ridding them of Riddle.

Dumbledore seemed pretty happy to explain the origins of the sword and how Mateo proved himself to be a true Gryffindor to have pulled it from the Sorting Hat. Everyone seemed pretty surprised at the revelation, but Mateo merely shrugged. "I'm afraid I am not going to leave Ravenclaw because of the name on a sword. I had fully intended to go for help until I fell into the Chamber, I highly doubt a lion would have acted as such. No offence to all current and past members of said house."

Even Professor Snape possibly looked amused by Mateo's nervous glances five people who qualified for that description. Thankfully no one raised an objection to Mateo's statement and Ginny was excused to return to her own bed to rest, and her parents went with her. Being left alone with the five most important figures in the school had Mateo sitting just a little straighter and wishing he was dressed in more than just pyjamas.

"I think two hundred points awarded is not an unfair amount for your efforts tonight Mr Banner," Professor Dumbledore decided, "and I shall see about an award for special services to the school. You have potentially saved many lives tonight."

"Thank you sir," Mateo said politely and calmly.

"And now I think we should leave you to rest, even if you do not intend to sleep you should be given some peace and quiet," Professor Flitwick said kindly.

Mateo was rather grateful when the teachers silently filed out and the lights in the Hospital Wing dimmed, leaving him to finally relax for what felt like the first time years. In reality it was barely nearing midnight but Mateo's body was insisting that it had done too much that day. Considering he had almost been flattened by a basilisk he felt quite within his rights to ache all over, and now that he was alone and safe Mateo let himself feel tired. He didn't even realise he was drifting off, and within ten minutes the Ravenclaw had slipped into a reasonably deep sleep.

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After a surprisingly restful night Mateo was at least not feeling any worse than before he had accidentally fallen asleep. Although he could still quite happily roll over and sleep for another four hours at least, but the stiffness in his leg stopped that from happening. Madam Pomfrey brought him lunch when he woke up, which was more like brunch as it consisted of toast and scrambled eggs with bacon, and checked his leg. Apparently the scan showed that the bones were regrowing nicely and that he should be able to leave the following morning, by which time the bone would have fully hardened and could support his weight.

Ginny was discharged after lunch and Mateo was glad to see that every one of her brothers arrived to get her. He was surprised to see that the twins were not even trying to crack a joke as they thanked him for saving their sister. Before they left they formed a supporting circle around her, the twins walking behind like guards whilst Ron stalked in front as if daring anyone to start on them. Mateo decided that it was an incredibly foolhardy person that would attempt such a thing, before he turned back to his book.

Neville appeared barely five minutes after they had left with Mateo's book bag slung over one shoulder and a few sweets from their mutual friends. He managed to cajole Mateo into giving a brief retelling of the events which left Neville sitting in the seat looking shocked.

"Sorry I would have come and seen if you wanted to come but time was of the essence," Mateo said.

"I would have passed out with fright if I had gone down there! It was probably a good thing you went alone, I would have just got in the way," Neville laughed.

Apparently there were only two topics of conversation amongst the student body: the first being Ginny's disappearance and rescue, and how it was Mateo who did the saving. Although none of the teachers had spoken at all about the topic it was obvious who had acted as Mateo was the only absent student that hadn't been petrified. The Slytherins were apparently looking murderous that he had defeated the Heir and the basilisk, although apparently there were still a couple of people who were insisting that he was the Heir. Thankfully those who had that opinion did not speak too loudly in fear of the Ravenclaw house, or the Weasley clan, hearing them.

The second topic of conversation was of how Gilderoy Lockhart had been caught fleeing the school. According to the rumours the teachers had finally called his bluff at the staff meeting that had been called to announce Ginny's disappearance. McGonagall had challenged him to find the Chamber and rescue the girl as he had boasted he could do, and Snape had backed her up. Whilst the Transfiguration professor had been busy with the Weasleys, Snape had snuck to Lockhart's rooms and caught him packing in haste to leave. The final nail in the coffin for the flamboyant fraud was his attempt to obliviate the potions master. Apparently Lockhart was still recuperating in St Mungo's from the injuries Snape had 'accidentally' inflicted whilst defending himself.

Ravenclaw had indeed been awarded an extra 200 points and now were miles in front of the other houses. Ravenclaw's performance through the year meant they had once more won the Quidditch Cup, and thanks to the recent boost they sat smugly at the top of the pile for the House Cup as well. Mateo felt a tiny bit guilty for spoiling the competition and making it impossible for anyone to beat Ravenclaw in the next month. But then he remembered he had faced a basilisk, so he decided to feel less guilty.

Neville had had the foresight to ask whichever Ravenclaw had retrieved his books to also gather his homework, and Mateo sent his friend off to their next set of lessons armed with the Ravenclaw's scrolls to hand in too. Neville had also promised to make a note of anything major Mateo would need to catch up on, and to pass on any homework they were set.

Madam Pomfrey was actually quite a pleasant lady to talk to once you got past her stern visage, and the woman's fearsome reputation kept other curious people at bay outside of her domain. During the day he was in there Mateo heard quite a lot of traffic in the hallway outside of the Hospital Wing, a lot more than he guessed usually went passed. The thought of people trying to gawk at him like a zoo exhibit had him very grateful that he had curtains around his bed. Neville's information on the rumours that circulated over breakfast and classes suggested that most people wanted to see whether he had truly lost a leg, or if he was covered in scars.

By the evening of the following day Madam Pomfrey was pleased that Mateo's bones had regrown as well as they would and that they were strong enough for him to walk on. As his ribs and head had healed perfectly that morning there was nothing stopping the mediwitch from discharging the student. With this clean bill of health she allowed Mateo to change into his freshly cleaned clothes and to head down to dinner with the rest of the student population.

He was grateful that Neville had dropped by to accompany him as it took him a short while to get used to walking on the leg again, it felt as normal as a limb ever did but having had it shattered and then frozen it felt weird to Mateo for it to be normal. There was also a residual ache deep in the bone from it only just having grown so it was less painful to limp slightly to alleviate the amount of weight he out on it. Pomfrey had warned that the amount of damage could potentially cause him to permanently limp, but Mateo decided that he could live with it. He was able to walk at the normal speed for him, and he didn't think he wouldn't be able to run.

As he had expected, Mateo's arrival killed any conversations that were already ongoing when they walked into the Great Hall. Their slightly slower pace had meant that although they left with enough time to normally be early, they arrived when most people had sat down. He could spot his friends sitting in the middle of the Ravenclaw table, which meant he had to limp all the way to them to get a seat.

It was incredibly unnerving and uncomfortable for the Ravenclaw to be the centre of attention as he hurried up the hall to the seat left empty for him. The intensity of staring had increased since the last time he had been amongst the other students, yet they felt less threatening. Public opinion seemed to have turned and Mateo no longer felt like an outcast and more like a celebrity. And he wasn't sure he liked the change.

His friends were not to be deterred though and they spent the entire meal trying to pry details from him, such as what injuries he had sustained and what the chamber looked like. Mateo was not unaware of the fact that a lot of the people around them were listening in, and the Gryffindor table was surprisingly quiet behind him. It seemed that even the lions were starved of information as either Ginny was not talking about it or her brothers had prevented anyone asking her questions. What didn't help the fact was that the week was finally over and everyone seemed to have enough energy to discuss absolutely anything not relating to the homework they had to do that weekend.

By the time he had reached his seat the majority of the people in the room had turned back to their meals and the chatting had built up again. He had hardly been able to sit down, and Neville at his table behind him, before people within earshot had started shooting questions at him. The short walk had already tired Mateo out, and he wasn't sure how much he should reveal, so he merely stated that he had dealt with the basilisk. Where possible he redirected the questions and conversations towards what he had missed.

Mateo actually learnt of many events that had occurred the evening that he had not been aware of. With the discovery of Ginny's abduction the Board of Governors had flown into a panic and had allowed the Ministry to arrest Hagrid, who apparently had been the suspected cause of the attacks 50 years ago. Dumbledore had also been forced to step down because of the number of attacks, but Mateo's reappearance with Ginny and a blood covered sword soon had the Headmaster back in charge.

Mateo found himself yawning as he played with his dessert of chocolate cheesecake whilst everyone around him seemed to still be very awake and chipper. He was grateful when Stephen and Anthony helped him to his feet and stayed with him on the way back to their common room. The former grabbed his bag for him whilst Anthony offered him a shoulder to lean on as they walked up the many stairs to their beds. Behind them Terry, Michael, Padma, Su, and Mandy followed chatting happily amongst themselves, and the loss of two of their number wasn't too hard to bear for once.

"You know you better hope you don't grow much before the rest of us have a chance to. Otherwise in the future you'll be using us as crutches rather than a leaning post," Terry chuckled from behind them.

"That depends on me doing incredibly stupid stuff in the future that ends up with me requiring a shoulder to lean on," Mateo replied.

"You pulled the Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat apparently, that by default means you are likely to be doing stupid stuff," Mandy stated.

"So what is with the Sword of Gryffindor? That was something I must have missed it my research on Hogwarts," Mateo asked.

"It's apparently goblin forged, which means it absorbs anything that makes it stronger while repelling that which could weaken it," Stephen replied. "It was Godric's and apparently has been lost for centuries, but the myths say that only a true Gryffindor could wield it."

"So apparently I was mis-sorted if the myths are true," Mateo said hesitantly.

"We have said that you are too reckless for our house, but I doubt that a lion would be able to figure out what you did on your own," Terry reminded him of their past conversations.

"Maybe the whole pride of them could eventually have got it," Michael chipped in and everyone shared a small chuckle at the dig at the Gryffindors.

"Are you sure both your parents were muggle? It would explain how you were able to pull the sword out of the hat if one of them was magical," Padma asked thoughtfully.

"I don't remember them doing any magic, and the area my family lived in was definitely in a Muggle neighbourhood. But perhaps one of them could have been faking it? If they were a Muggleborn that went into hiding because of the war then it would make sense, but then neither of my parents attended Hogwarts," Mateo pretended to think on the subject.

Whilst his friends continued to discuss possible explanations of how he managed to wield the sword, and whether one of his parents could have been magical, Mateo focussed on not tripping over his own leg as they made it up the last few flights of stairs to get to the spiral staircase to their common room. Once there most of the group aimed for the seats around one of the large windows but Mateo merely waved to them and carried on heading up the stairs to the dormitories. All he had on his mind at that moment was to have a proper showed, to brush his teeth and to sleep for a month.

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Once the usual hailstorm of stares, whispers, rumours and less subtle questioning had died down Mateo was glad that his life returned to normal. Or as normal as it could be with two of his friends still petrified. Whilst in the Hospital Wing he had had an in depth conversation with Madam Pomfrey about how exactly a petrified person survived without a pulse for months on end. He had been quite glad to hear that there would be no permanent effects caused by being petrified. However it didn't make the waiting process any easier as the mandrakes still had over about a week left of growing time until they were mature enough to be used.

The morning that it was announced that the mandrakes were ready ended up being possibly the best day of that year as three of the four houses rejoiced about getting their friends back. Although the professors may have disputed the sentiment as very little learning actually occurred that Friday, the majority of them allowed the students their day off from serious learning. Only Snape kept rigid control of his classroom, but no one expected any different of the brooding professor.

Instead of the evening meal being its usual quiet affair Mateo was not surprised to walk into the Great Hall to see the golden feast dishes sitting empty and waiting. Their friends would be coming down from the Hospital Wing within an hour and it was all Mateo could do to keep himself in his seat and not pace up and down impatiently. It was easier when the feast started and he had conversation and food to distract him, but he still didn't miss the moment that Hermione and Kevin walked into the Great Hall with the other three students.

Whilst most people carried on eating there were a few quite joyful reunions around the large room as various groups of friends were reunited. Justin's friends were engaging in a loud round of back slapping and cheering, Colin had returned to the rest of the first year Gryffindors and was chattering madly trying to catch up on the exciting things he had missed, while Penelope was still greeted avidly but in a more restrained manner. Hermione and Kevin had immediately spotted Mateo's joyous face and had made a beeline for him. While the older students may have been worried about their image to hug, Mateo was not similarly hung up. He gladly dragged the pair into an embrace once they were within reach and couldn't stop himself from grinning madly.

"You figured it out!" Hermione squealed happily.

"Only after you did the research, I would have dismissed a basilisk until it got me," Mateo shrugged.

"Yeah but you found the Chamber of Secrets, and killed the basilisk, and saved Ginny," apparently the petrified students had been brought up to date with the main events since their attack.

"Call it quits at team work?" Kevin suggested. "Pat each other on the back and sit down, there's a feast going on y'know!"

"I suppose neither of you got much breakfast before you were petrified did you," Mateo realised as the three sat down next to each other once more.

"If you can count one piece of toast as adequate breakfast then yes we did," Kevin muttered as he started heaping food onto his plate.

"You didn't have to come with me," Hermione pointed out.

"But we weren't allowed to roam alone, surely you wouldn't have broken the rules?" Kevin asked in a mock scandalous tone.

Hermione didn't reply but merely smiled at them before turning to her food. It showed how happy she was that she was allowing herself the rare treat of sweet treats, and currently had a huge helping of lemon cheesecake and ice cream in her bowl.

The feast continued for much longer than Mateo remembered any meal lasting as everyone celebrated the return of their friends and the destruction of the terrifying threat. It was close to eleven in the evening by the time Professor Dumbledore finally shooed everyone to bed, and many students were seen cradling their aching stomachs as they left the room. As Mateo settled down into his bed he couldn't help but sigh happily and contentedly now that his two closest friends were back.


	48. Chapter 48 - Schools Out?

**A/N: Hello all! Hope you are all well, I am enjoying the thought of having a four day weekend! And my friends university friends are coming up next weekend, so I only have a 3 day work week next week! Setting up the latest webshop is going slowly, I've learnt about SEO names and keywords (basically the google search terms you want your stuff to be flagged up by) so now all that's left is to weigh the 431 products we haven't got data for... including a table that I reckon is probably over 50kg. And all I have is a set of bathroom scales... So work is going to be fun next week!**

 **Thanks as usual to all readers, and double thanks if you register your interest/appreciation in any way!**

* * *

 **Chapter Forty Eight – Schools out?**

In no time at all the end of term was upon the students at Hogwarts. Overall the student body seemed joyous at the thought of an extended period without homework or exams. Although Albus' decision to cancel all non-essential exams meant that there weren't many people wanting to run away from the tests. There were a few, mainly studious Ravenclaws, who didn't seem that happy with the thought of an enforced period away from the library they loved. Mateo smiled as he heard a group of first years moaning about having to go home, he remembered when he had seen a couple of them moaning about being homesick at the start of term.

As far as Mateo knew Hermione had been the only one who hadn't been too keen with the cancellation of the exams, even though she had missed a lot of revision time. However their group had worked on her and she had eventually agreed to the idea of spending the extra time relaxing outside in the sunshine. It had been a close call, but their combined efforts had lured her away from the dusty library, and they were engaged in an animated discussion whilst lounging under a tree by the Black Lake.

Their very important discussions mostly comprised of their plans to meet up over the summer, and what they would do depending on where they ended up. Because it was such a difficult decision to make, three of their number felt bad about taking advantage of Tony's jet, they started the discussion as soon as they could. As it was they had been talking over the various pros and cons for the last three days and were yet to make a decision on the matter.

"Why do you have to live so far away?" Kevin grumbled good-naturedly.

"Because America seems to have more than its fair share of superheroes and alien invasions. Just be glad I live in America and not India still, living there would involve one heck of a road trip. If the train journey didn't terrify you then ricksaw rides would," Mateo grinned at the thought of his friends experiencing Indian roads. "I can suggest to Tony that they relocate Avengers Tower to London, but I doubt the UK government would approve the planning permission for it to be built in the heart of the city."

"Well there was an alien attack on London a few weeks ago apparently, there's probably some empty plots of land available," Kevin pointed out.

"I heard a little about that, Dad was rather vague with the details but he said Thor was involved," the American student said.

"I don't think even the media knows more than that," shrugged Kevin.

"If I find out more I'll let you know," Mateo promised.

He didn't mention how it grated that they were still trying to protect him by hiding the details. Although he knew that they just cared about him and wanted him to have a childhood, there were times when Mateo wanted to point out that he had been in the middle of the Battle of New York too. He had seen the blood and gore of that battle, he could handle hearing a few more details about what went on to his extended surrogate family.

"See this is where you are an amazing friend, I get all the inside gossip," Kevin punched him gently on the arm and successfully bringing him out of his thoughts.

"Should I take that as a compliment or as an insult that you just enjoy using me?" Mateo asked with a straight face.

"Oh definitely the latter," Hermione joined the pair with a laugh. "You could just ask Tony to build you your own Iron Man suit, then that way you could zip over the Atlantic as and when you need to."

"That's actually not a bad idea, the only problem would be having to deal with any growth spurts I have in the future," Mateo sighed.

"I'm sure if you word it right Tony would see that as a challenge to overcome," Hermione spoke.

"Indeed," Mateo chuckled. "I can add it to the list of things that I bring to Tony's attention for him to help us with."

The morning dawned of the day that everyone was to leave Hogwarts on the train. Every dormitory was empty once more and the carriages were lined up to take the students to the train station. Half of the students had already boarded the train by the time Mateo and his friends reached the platform, but they managed to secure a compartment of their own.

However Neville, Kevin, and Hermione had just sat down, and Mateo was about to join them, when he spotted something outside the window. A raven had just landed on the roof of the small station building and was strutting along the guttering. Although that might not be uncommon behaviour for a bird, Mateo was intrigued by the unusually vibrant sheen on the wings of the bird, and the piercing green of its eyes.

"I'll be right back," he said as he quickly slipped out of the compartment doorway and headed off the train.

The raven was still there when he stepped back onto the platform, and it didn't seem inclined to fly away as he approached. It was only as he stood directly underneath the bird did it hop along the gutter in the direction of the path the first years took in September. Curiosity got the better of Mateo and he followed it down the platform. Again it travelled further and alighted on a tree at the bend of the path.

At this point Mateo hesitated, he could not afford to travel too far and to miss the train home, but he still had at least five minutes until said transport would depart. And worst come to the worst he could just ask one of the professors to contact his father. He took a deep breath and chose his path, and wandered after the raven.

He trotted around the last corner that he had seen the bird fly around and was slightly disappointed to see it gone. Mateo was about to turn around and head back to the train when something slammed into his back and pushed him to the hard ground.

Mateo coughed heartily to expel the dust from his lungs that he inadvertently inhaled upon impact. Once he was certain that he wasn't in danger of choking he gingerly rolled over to see what had hit him. Standing above him with a wide grin of satisfaction was a very familiar face.

"There are more polite ways of greeting someone Loki," Mateo coughed as he sat up.

"But this one was infinitely more satisfying. To see the son of the monster being caught unawares is delicious," Loki smirked.

Mateo took the opportunity as they spoke to inspect Loki. It had been close to two years since he had seen the god and Mateo was struck by the amount the other had changed. Where before his hair had looked slick and perfectly controlled it now hung more in haphazard spikes. It still looked rather styled, but there was a definite air of unkeptness that Mateo didn't associate with Thor's adopted brother.

The air of neglect continued to Loki's clothes. Although they seemed to be able to self-repair and clean, like Thor's, there was evidence of scuff marks and scrapes. Even Thor's cloak hadn't borne a single tear after the battle against the Chitauri. To Mateo it seemed that the clothing had faced hard wear for a long time and was losing its ability to repair itself. He could guess how annoying it was to the formally impeccably dressed god that his image was less than perfect.

Finally Mateo inspected Loki's eyes and face, and what he saw almost made him shudder. The deep green eyes, which in some ways matched Mateo's, had gained a spark of insanity that hadn't been there before. It didn't help that Loki had lost quite a lot of weight and now looked closer to gaunt than just thin. The two factors teamed together gave the man a desperate and manic air that Mateo would normally associate with a cornered wild dog. Mateo was sure that whatever facility Loki had been living in he hadn't had an easy time there, and that he would likely fight tooth and nail to avoid going back.

"I've barely had six months proper training, give a _kid_ a break. I thought you were languishing in a gaol somewhere?" the Hogwarts student asked as he stood and dusted himself off.

"Asgard became rather tedious so I orchestrated an escape, faked my death and am free to travel the realms once more," Loki announced.

"So I should probably not mention this meeting to Thor?" Mateo asked.

"If you do I will kill you," Loki threatened.

"So the purpose of this is not to kill me then?" Mateo asked.

"Why would you assume that?" the god raised an eyebrow.

"The last time we met my Dad had recently smashed you repeatedly into the floor. You're attempt at world domination had been thwarted and you had been humiliated. Seeing as you have gained your freedom I guessed you would be looking for revenge. Or at least that is usually the MO of escapee villains."

"The events in Asgard recently had some unforeseen impacts, and those that would be able to assist you with your problem are dead. I decided to be gracious and offer my services in ridding you of the parasite," Loki ignored Mateo's last statement. His speech was slightly slower and more hesitant than normal, and Mateo got the impression it almost was painful for Loki to speak them.

"Why? Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the offer, but I do not understand why you would want to help me," Mateo asked.

"Frigga, Queen of Asgard, was one of many to be killed by the Dark Elves. She would have been the best qualified to assist you with this problem, however obviously that is not possible. It is in her memory I offer my services, as second best to deal with it," Loki said. It was obvious how painful it was for him to speak truthfully, and that the news still struck a nerve with the disgraced god.

"I don't want to insult your talents, but I have to ask whether you are certain you are competent enough to help me? You aren't just offering to do this out of a sense of duty to your adoptive mother?" Mateo said boldly.

Loki glared at him for his impertinence but replied cordially, if grudgingly. "I will be able to do what is needed; you should be asking yourself if you are up to facing this. It will not be a pleasant experience."

"I will manage, I do not want a leech within me," Mateo stated firmly.

"Then we should go," Loki held out a hand to the human.

"Wait, I need to leave a note for my friends to pass on to my Dad. How long will I be gone," Mateo suddenly remembered the others.

The god sighed heavily and conjured a piece of paper and a pen, "be quick, I can get it to them faster than you can move. We should be done in a week."

Determined to ensure that he would not give Loki a reason to go back on his offer the boy did grab the paper and scribbled a very vague but positive explanation of his disappearance before handing it back to Loki. True to his word the man vanished it immediately and Mateo had to trust that he sent it to the right place.

"I expect you to follow my orders precisely and immediately," Loki started to lay down the ground rules. "I will not tolerate insubordination nor cheek. Understand?"

"Yes sir," Mateo replied quickly whilst biting back a grin. Secretly he wondered what a meeting between this god and his Potions Master would be like. Either Snape and Loki would get on wondrously, or they would be at each other's throats within five minutes of meeting.

"I do not know how you will cope with inter-realm travel, so we shall be going to my hideout on Midgard," Loki explained. "Take my hand."

Mateo did as he was bid and barely had time to gasp before the pair of them vanished.

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"What do you mean he just left the train and didn't get back on?" Bruce's raised voice carried easily over the platform.

"Bruce take a breath," Tony advised him, worried about an appearance of a less easily controlled persona happening.

"I'm fine," Bruce snapped, "I just can't believe my son would run off like that. What did he say?"

"He saw something on the platform and went to look at it, and said he would be back soon. Then a letter appeared in our compartment saying he was going somewhere," Kevin said timidly.

"We didn't have time to get off the train to find him," Neville said miserably, but determined to back up his friend.

"Can I see the letter?" Bruce sighed.

Hermione quickly produced the piece of paper and handed it over. Tony for once acted sensibly and attempted to enact damage control by soothing the children and their parents whilst his friend read the letter. Bruce didn't really pay attention to the world around him, or the fact that Hermione's parents were shooting him worried glances over Tony's shoulder, and he instead focussed on the letter written in Mateo's unmistakable handwriting.

 ** _Dad (And friends)_**

 ** _I met someone unexpectedly at the platform who has offered to assist me with something that has been bothering me for a while. It would be the first of many issues to be dealt with, so I'm glad this one at least is getting addressed. I have been asked to keep his identity secret, but I trust him. I should be back in a week, if I expect to stay longer I will let you know._**

 ** _Sorry for running off like this but I believe this will be beneficial for everything. See you soon._**

 ** _Mateo x_**

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Bruce sighed as he finished reading the letter for the fiftieth time and tucked it into a pocket whilst he tried to remain calm. Over the two years that Mateo had been at school Bruce had worked on calming himself down without the assistance of his son and he thought that he had gotten rather good at it. However seeing as it was his son that was the cause of this stress he was finding it more difficult than usual to keep the Other Guy contained, as it was his other self's sense of protectiveness that was threatening to swamp Bruce.

However he managed to eventually slam the barrier up between him and his other half and finally regained full control. Tony had been very quick in herding Bruce back off Platform 9 ¾ and out to the open air. He knew that Bruce cooled off quicker in open quieter places, and if he failed to regain control then the Hulk had more places to run to rather than just destroying the train station.

"So a person unknown has offered to help him with a problem?" Tony broke the silence that had befallen them in the car.

"I would have said he has to be with Loki, apart from the fact that we have Thor's account of his death. Who else knows about Mateo and his problems?" Bruce took of his glasses and kneaded his eyes to stave off a migraine.

"There's only three in the magical world, and they are all bound to silence and not skilled enough to help," Tony countered.

"But Loki is dead!"

"Thor thinks he is dead, there is a difference," the billionaire said rather reluctantly.

"I would have thought Mateo would have had more sense than to go off with him," Bruce growled.

"Loki did not seem too hostile towards him when they met last though, did he?" Tony recalled the details he had been given of the meeting after the Battle of New York.

"He didn't, but he didn't seem friendly enough to not kill Mateo as revenge against us," Bruce said darkly.

"I don't think even Loki would stoop low enough to murder innocent children as a way of getting revenge," Tony said, although he didn't sound entirely convinced himself.

"Even if he doesn't kill Mateo, we don't exactly have may ways of following him to another realm. I doubt Thor would have much of a clue as to where Loki could be hiding, his brother has had much more experience in hiding from people," Bruce grumbled.

"We give him a week to reappear, if he doesn't by then we head back to America and tell the others," Tony said decisively.

"That could be a week that Loki has ahead of us to get running," Bruce protested. "We only have a few hours that he could still be on this _planet_!"

"But if it _is_ Loki and if he _is_ helping Mateo then can we risk interrupting him and stopping him from acting?" for once the billionaire was the voice of reason.

… Fine, one week," Bruce huffed and returned to staring out of the window at the rainy London landscape.

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Mateo looked around at the barren landscape below him in amazement. Loki had somehow teleported them to an abandoned castle high in the mountains of some country, and there was no other living being visible as far as the eye could see. The sum total of the beauty of the area was snow and rocks, which covered the entire vista as far as the eye could see.

"Where are we?" Mateo asked.

"East of the UK, west of America," Loki replied shortly and unhelpfully.

"How did you come by this castle?" Mateo asked again as he turned around and surveyed Loki's 'hideout'.

"It was already abandoned, I merely made it habitable," Loki snapped. "Now come along."

Deciding that it was probably not a good idea to anger the god further Mateo shut up and tried to keep up with the god's much faster pace. After passing through the portcullis, which closed of its own accord behind them, the pair crossed a large deserted courtyard and through the grand aged wooden doors into the castle. The drab grey stone that made up the defensive wall of the castle was also the main material for the building of the castle, making the entire structure look dark and oppressive. Mateo thought it suited Loki's will to dominate quite nicely.

The large doors had led the pair straight into a large hall, which for a second confused Mateo who had been expecting the large and bright Entrance Hall of Hogwarts. Perhaps the grey hall in front of them had once been covered in tapestries and lit by many large chandeliers, but now the room was empty of all furniture and drapes. The only source of colour and light came from the weak sunlight attempting to shine through the windows. High above stained glass motifs depicted long forgotten saints rewarding the masses, and long dead lords triumphing in mighty battles. But now their deeds illuminated a deserted room, casting light down for only one child to gaze in awe upon.

Although Mateo would have liked to be able to stop and properly inspect the stained glass windows Loki had already covered the entire room and was heading through a smaller but heavy door. So the human ran to catch up and followed the green clad man up the large staircase. They kept going all the way to the third floor where Loki turned off the main stairs and down an unlit corridor. He stopped at the far end and turned to the right to open a door.

"That is something else we shall have to correct, having a limp will merely hinder you in your battles," Loki announced, and Mateo started. He didn't think the god would have cared, or had paid enough attention to notice his slight limp. "This will be your room."

The room was bare except for a large bed, a chair, and a fireplace. The large window in one corner looked out over the landscape but beyond that there was nothing to draw Mateo's gaze. It was only as he looked around the room that he noticed something.

"Err, sir? I only have the clothes that I am wearing," Mateo said hesitantly.

"You can clean them with magic, you won't be here long enough to require more," Loki dismissed.

"But I am not allowed to practice magic out of school, the penalty is potentially being stripped of my magic," Mateo informed the God.

As he had said to his friends before, him being an American citizen meant that European tracing spells weren't attuned to him. However he really didn't want to run the risk of bringing wizards to Loki's safe haven and ruining whatever trust the god had in him. If that happened he might not be able to find any way of removing the horcrux in him, so Mateo had good incentive to avoid attracting any attention.

"This castle is covered in so many protective spells so that no one can find it, they will not be able to detect your magic," Loki sneered, probably at the thought of humans finding him.

"Be that as it may sir, but I do not know the incantation," Mateo wasn't sure whether it was Loki or the setting that had him talking more politely and properly.

Loki sighed and seemed to be trying to keep his temper in check. "I shall deal with your problem tomorrow, and then after than I shall teach you what you need. It seems that whatever passes as _education_ in this realm is pitifully inadequate."

"Thank you sir," Mateo's words seemed to startle Loki. "Is there anything I can do to repay your assistance and education? No doubt you can do cleaning and such with a click of your fingers, but I could perhaps cook food for you?"

"I have yet to become enamoured of Midgardian food, but it would save me effort. I trust you are not a lousy cook to offer such services?"

"I am probably better than everyone my age, and better than have the adult population," Mateo said without hesitation.

"Then you shall cook, I shall show you where the kitchens are," Loki swept out of the room and down the corridors once more.

The drabness of the great hall continued throughout the castle, and made it extremely obvious either how little time Loki spent at this residence, or how little interest he had in material things.

Mateo was at least relieved to see that the kitchen was properly furnished with all kinds of pots, pans, knives, cutlery, plates, and furniture. A large fire burnt in the large grate, giving light and heat to the room that was large enough for ten to work in without any space issues.

"Sir?" Mateo started and waited for Loki to turn to him. "What kinds of food do you prefer? How much do you require at each meal?"

"I eat anything, but unlike my brother I have a taste for finer dining than merely a spit roasted animal. Nor do I eat half as much as he does," Loki sneered.

"Thank you, what time do you want to eat?"

"Breakfast shall be at eight, lunch will be at noon, and dinner shall be at six in the evening," Loki declared.

"I better start cooking then," Mateo checked his watch and headed towards the door that he assumed led to the larder.

"We are four hours ahead of English time here, so do not bother about lunch and we shall merely focus on dinner. As such it is two in the afternoon and we have two hours to spare before you need concern yourself with cooking. I shall instead teach you some more refined and elegant ways of casting magic than your primitive stick waving," Loki decided.

"I am prepared to listen to anything you deign to tell me," Mateo waited patiently for the man to start the lesson.

Loki thankfully took in the humble manner that Mateo was hoping he would and started to talk. "The problem with you Seidr is that you think that you require a stick to channel your magic. However the elder's of your race have the ability to cast silently and wandlessly, which proves that notion false. You merely need the strength of mind and concentration that does indeed come with years of practice…"


	49. Chapter 49 - Unconventional Methods

**A/N: Hello again people! Sorry for the delay with getting this chapter up, I had my university friends come to visit this last weekend and I didn't manage to find time to post. We had an awesome time going around Warwick Castle and then a few nearby towns. Time passed way too quickly and they're all gone again... but that means I can post!**

 **Thanks again to everyone who reads my story, and double thanks to any that follow, favourite, or review.**

* * *

 **Chapter Forty Nine – Unconventional Methods**

"So, are you ready for me to begin separating you from the parasite?" Loki asked the next day as they stood in the empty hall.

Loki's oral lesson had lasted the entire two hours they had had spare the previous afternoon, until he decided that Mateo should start preparing their dinner. Although in some ways Mateo felt that Loki just like to talk to hear his own voice he couldn't deny he had learnt so much in even a few hours from the god. His only regret was that he hadn't had something to write notes on as Loki had spoken, and Mateo was determined to ask for his tutor to source him one, and a pen, so that he could attempt to remember even more.

He hadn't had much time that morning to prepare for what they were about to attempt. They had gone to bed at eight the previous night, and Loki had stormed into his room at six that morning and demanded that he rose. Mateo had practically fallen out of bed to comply quickly, and had barely had time to throw his cloak on before Loki had cast some kind of cleaning charm and marched him back down to the ground floor. They had barely stopped walking when Loki turned sharply and started talking to him.

"Yes sir, however I have some questions that I wouldn't mind answering," Mateo ventured as he scrabbled to get his brain into gear to tackle what they were about to do.

Loki merely raised an eyebrow and waited for the boy to continue, which Mateo did quickly. "We discovered a bit of what this piece of soul could be, and how it came into being. A dark wizard tried to take over the world about 15 years ago, and as a way of cheating death he split his soul into pieces and stored them in some vessels. Apparently I am one of them, but whether I was an intended horcrux or not we don't know. If it is possible will you be able to tell how many pieces Voldemort split his soul into?"

"Perhaps I will be able to tell, we shall see how this works," Loki looked thoughtful. Mateo was now certain that Loki was only running on theory he had read from a book, and at that moment two thoughts popped into his head. One, that he hoped that Asgardian books were detailed enough for this procedure, and he prayed that the god was not thinking of using the piece of Voldemort's soul for his own purposes. "Now prepare yourself, this will not be pleasant."

Mateo barely had time to tense up before Loki stretched an arm out towards him and seemed to freeze the boy's body. Then a green light started to stream forth from Loki's hand, causing Mateo's heartrate to skyrocket in panic. From their extensive research at the Tower Mateo knew what the killing curse looked like, and for the first time he feared that he had made a terrible mistake.

However nothing came of the green light and he remained living as the almost mist twirled around his body. Almost as if it was searching for something the mist seemed to thicken in places before dispersing again. Eventually it coalesced around Mateo's head before seeping into the skin on his forehead.

Up until that point Mateo had not experienced any negative sensation beyond the horrible restriction of being frozen, and the jolt of panic. But as the mist gathered around his forehead the boy was aware of the slow increase of pain focussed mostly around his scar and driving deep into his brain. It started like brain freeze, but soon built to migraine levels and beyond. Mateo _really_ wanted to reach up and rub his head furiously, but Loki's forethought stopped that. He wasn't even able to squint his eyes even a fraction against the pain, which made the situation even more unbearable.

Loki seemed unconcerned as Mateo started to emit small whimpers as the pain continued to increase to the point where it felt like his brain was growing too big for his skull and threatened to explode. The God was more concerned with the black mist that started to seep from the boy's skin, presumably where the scar had been, and began to intermingle with the green mist he had conjured.

For three agonizing minutes Loki stared at the source of the black mist and watched as the stream slowed to a trickle and eventually ceased. What was left was a black mass hovering in the five metre gap between god and human. Whilst Loki was looking at the mist with interest Mateo was having a hard time seeing anything. He had started whimpering in pain and fear after the first minute, and would have happily passed out if Loki's spell hadn't stopped him from doing so. So all he could do was emit distressed noises whilst tears leaked unchecked from his frozen eyes.

The green mist proved its usefulness again by forming a kind of barrier around the black mist, containing it and forcing it to stay where Loki wanted. Although Mateo wasn't aware of the fact it also sustained the spirit within, ensuring it did not die without a host until he was done with it. The black mass writhed in a decidedly unhappy gesture as it tested its boundaries.

"Be still parasite, you are in the presence of a god," Loki spat and felt smug as the morass did cease its motion.

" _Who are you that dare call me a parasite?_ " the mist hissed in an oddly human voice.

"I am Loki Laufeyson, heir to two thrones and two realms, and a god to you dumb apes," he stated. "I am also the one with the power to give you life once more if I deem it a worthwhile investment. Now speak, tell me your name."

" _I am Voldemort, the Heir of Slytherin and most powerful wizard alive,_ " the mist spoke again, but in a much more deferential tone than before. Mateo was surprised that Voldemort still had the capacity to be humble.

"I heard from this mortal of how you split your soul to cheat death, that is an ingenious plot," Loki proved his guile and employed his silver tongue to learn more.

" _Most magical folk do not have the power or drive to follow the path I have taken,_ " Voldemort said smugly.

"Power is certainly very important," Loki felt he was onto something.

" _There are many powerful artefacts in the Wizarding world, but true power lies in immortality,_ " boasted Voldemort.

"I am intrigued by this process through which you gained immortality, it could not have been painless," Loki said conversationally.

" _There was little pain on my part, although it did require a sacrifice of another soul to complete the ritual,_ " Voldemort's fragment of soul said carelessly.

"That is convenient, it is certainly easier to get something done when it is not you doing the sacrificing. It certainly was easier the last time I attempted to take over the world by using hypnotised slaves than actually doing the legwork myself," Loki replied in the same conversational and unconcerned tone.

" _How did that go?_ " Voldemort asked curiously.

"Not well, a load of skilled do-gooders thwarted my plan. But I have learnt and will adjust appropriately for the future," Loki sniffed.

" _I'm sure I could assist you in your future attempt,_ " Voldemort ventured with an overly carefree tone.

"We could discuss this, however I would prefer to do this face to face. Is there a way of returning you to a body, and do we only need this part of your soul or should I find more?" Loki asked.

" _I know of a ritual to give me a new body, but you could just allow me to possess the boy,_ " Voldemort almost wheedled. " _I assume that is why you have kept the brat alive?"_

"He is still sustaining you, it was necessary to keep him alive whilst we converse. And as to whether you possess him, it depends whether building you a new body is stronger than the boy is. And you didn't answer the second question, should I go find more pieces?" Loki said commandingly.

" _My magic is probably stronger than the brat's so a new body may be beneficial. And finding more of my Horcruxes is unnecessary, especially seeing as the original part of my soul is still out there,_ " Voldemort stated with certainty.

"How can you tell your original soul part is out there?" Loki asked curiously, still with a light tone.

" _I am still joined to the rest of my soul, even if I am in a corporeal form,_ " Voldemort revealed.

"It must be hard to keep track of them all," Loki said in concern.

" _Not at all, there are only seven pieces to track. Well eight with the original part, this one was an accidental addition that ruined the plan…_ "

"What's wrong?" Loki detected the sudden worry and hesitation in the spirit's voice.

" _There's something wrong, one of them is missing!_ " Voldemort hissed angrily.

"The brat got rid of it, it makes you start to wonder how much you underestimated him?" Loki smiled viciously.

The fragment of Voldemort's soul screamed in rage and started to writhe violently once more in agitation. It tried to hammer its way out of the green mist but the cage remained strong and steadfastly sealed. Loki's stony expression broke into a satisfied smirk as he watched the wisp repetitively hammer on the barrier.

Eventually he became bored of his entertainment and decided to move events along. "Well this has been fascinating, but I have things to do."

" _Release me!_ " Voldemort screeched.

"Sorry but there can only be one ruler of the world, and I'm certainly better qualified for the position," Loki stated coldly. "Goodbye."

At his final word the green bubble wavered slightly before collapsing in on itself. Both black and green mists disappeared into nothingness and Mateo and Loki were left alone once more in the colourless hall. While Loki stared at the recently empty spot in a thoughtful manner Mateo sunk to his knees and gingerly rubbed his forehead. The pain had lessened a bit from the unbearable levels they had been, but was still enough to make him want to curl up in a ball.

"So you are still living," Loki observed.

"Just about, but I wouldn't be surprised if my brain had melted and dripped out of my ear," Mateo said weakly.

"Was that enough information enough for you?"

"More than enough, thank you sir," Mateo said with obvious gratitude. "Salmon for lunch?"

"I thought you were intelligent, you are obviously are in no fit state to do anything right now. Go to your room and rest," Loki ordered.

"I made extra bread last night, it's in the fridge next to the salmon and cream cheese, and the salad," Mateo didn't argue, his head still felt like something was trying to split it in half.

"Here," Loki clenched his hand and once he opened again two white tablets sat on his palm.

"Painkillers?" Mateo asked as he took them and swallowed them dry. He may have had his own at his hip, but he felt that to refuse Loki's may look like he was snubbing the god. If he still wanted to learn from him, Mateo had to stay on his good side.

"Yes, you are very trusting of a murderer," Loki was still surprised the child was willing to follow his orders.

"You've had ample time to kill me already sir, you wouldn't leave it so long unless you had a plan. If that is the case then I'm likely screwed anyway, so why treat you with suspicion when all you've shown me so far is kindness?" Mateo said simply.

Loki did not reply to that, so Mateo gave a respectful dip of his head and wandered off to his room to lie down. He didn't look back, but if he did he would have seen the bemused look on the god's face.

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As Loki had promised as soon as Mateo was feeling up to it they restarted his lessons and built upon the short two hour lesson from the first day. The boy tried as hard as he could and made slow progress each day towards what Loki described as 'basic control a two year old should know.'

It was coming close to the end of the fifth day when Mateo brought up what he wanted to talk about. The change in latitude still had Mateo confused, and the days were almost three times as long as the night. But Mateo had kept careful track of the days to make sure he had ample time to prepare before he gave his proposal. That evening, when Loki was about to leave the kitchen to return to whatever he did alone in the castle, Mateo plucked up the courage and broke the silence.

"Sir, I was hoping to talk to you?" Mateo waited to be given permission to continue.

Loki's typical way of giving that cue was to merely raise an eyebrow. It had taken Mateo a while to realise that Snape and Loki were actually incredibly similar, they both preferred to use facial expressions than words. Both could also be described as psychopathic at times, and no one would dare say that to their faces.

"If you would be willing to have me, I would be honoured if you would continue to teach me for this summer?" Mateo asked respectfully and held his breath.

"What would your father think, fraternising with the enemy," Loki said with mock seriousness.

"Dad is open to logical reasoning, and this is beneficial to me as my control is coming on leaps and bounds because of you. The only thing is I think Dad would probably like some evidence I am still alive," Mateo hesitated.

"We can record a message, you Midgardians have those cameras that can be used and I can drop it off at their fortress," Loki decided.

"Thank you," Mateo smiled hesitantly. "I really appreciate the opportunity to study under you, I can already tell I'm going to learn more in a month from you than years at Hogwarts."

"You are either developing a silver tongue, or are becoming more confident in manipulating people," Loki smirked.

"I'm staying with the silver tongue abilities, there is no way I couldn't pick some talents up off of you sir," Mateo's eyes twinkled with humour as he bowed and turned to wash up.

It hurt Mateo to keep himself away from his father and to be deceiving him, but with the video message sent off he at least could convince himself that Bruce should be reassured a bit at least. But his guilt was easy to ignore with the sessions he had with Loki as they were always intense and the god never allowed his student to slack off.

After a while the two fell into a reasonably comfortable routine, with Loki pushing him as hard as Mateo could manage. Each night he fell into a dead sleep, and rising in the morning became a lesson in determination for the youth. Casting a warming charm on his room before he attempted to get up helped his efforts, as the castle became uncomfortably cold at night.

After the first day Mateo was surprised to find Loki dropping his superior act most of the time, and the human started to actually enjoy spending time with his host. Sure, the entertainment wasn't quite the same as socialising with the Avengers or his father, but the dry sarcastic humour that Loki possessed was surprisingly amusing once Mateo had gotten his head around it. The god definitely had issues, most notably a sense of being wronged by his adoptive family and a serious power complex, but if Mateo was careful to steer the conversation away from dangerous topics Loki could be an impressive storyteller.

Once Loki had realised he didn't need to strut around and assert his dominance over Mateo he also became more tolerable and would willingly be cajoled into telling tales. So in the evenings he regaled the mortal with stories of the nine realms, both things he had seen and experienced, and the myths and tales he remembered from childhood. Mateo noticed that the Jotun seemed to appreciate the stories of wit and intelligence over the stories of strength and glorious warfare. Especially his favourite stories seemed to comprise of the underdog or weaker but more intelligent character winning over the stronger one. The two occasionally traded riddles too, but the cultural differences made many of the riddles impossible to solve for the other party. But they muddled through using the more generic riddles.

Loki had supplied Mateo with many pens and notepads which Mateo set to using immediately after being handed them. When he had the opportunity to, mostly when he was waiting for food to cook, he frantically scribbled down observations, thoughts, hints, and important facts. In no time at all he had filled three books and was making steady progress through the fourth.

Whilst at Hogwarts the teachers seemed to spend an excessive number of lessons ensuring their students understood the theory and the risks of what could go wrong with careless casting. Loki, however, threw Mateo straight into the practical lessons, scoffing at the boy's worry about ill effects of inexperienced work.

"Magic works, or it doesn't," Loki had said in a condescending tone. "Now shut up and light the candle without your wand, and yes, hand gestures are allowed."

And Mateo did, although it took him a few days to accomplish the task. Loki's insults were similar to Snape's brand of teaching so Mateo let them slide as he focussed on the next task.

Another difference to the precise instructions from the professors Loki practically spent every day trying to get Mateo to forget that and to focus on intent and imagining what he wanted to happen. The Asgardian had been taught a more instinctual branch of magic which he insisted was compatible with the kinds of magic that Seidr wielded, if the student was willing enough to master it. With that kind of insult Mateo threw himself into trying to mimic Loki, but try as he might his magic never really acted as instinctually or freely as the god's.

"It isn't hard to do!" Loki said one day in exasperation.

"Maybe not for you, but I'm only an average human," Mateo snapped back.

He was out of breath and sweating without having moved more than a metre in any direction in the last hour. What he had been trying to do was create a localised earthquake, something that Loki had managed to do without even thinking. Again the Jotun had been reiterating the importance of will and imagination, but Mateo obviously lacked the skill.

"Well if you truly want to become a great warrior you need to be more than just an _average_ human," shot back Loki.

"Well what do you suggest, you possess me and fight all my battles for me?" the youth snarled.

When Loki didn't immediately reply Mateo stared at him. "Oh hell no."

"I'm not thinking of possessing you, but there is something we could do."

"Well I'm not too enamoured of how hesitant you seem," Mateo stared at his tutor.

"It's not a decision to take lightly, but I feel that it would be quite beneficial to you," Loki continued to stall.

"Then why are you stalling? What does your idea involve, and what are the risks and benefits?" Mateo asked impatiently.

"The benefits would you wouldn't find grasping diverse magical practices as hard, and you could potentially end up with faster reflexes than every other human. Risks are minimal, there could be some rejection of the procedure but I would be able to counter whatever complications occurred," Loki said without hesitating.

"And what would we have to do?" Mateo pressed.

"A blood transfer," Loki stated, as if it was a simple thing. "It would introduce my DNA to your system and transfer my ability to harness magic, and perhaps some other skills."

"Your entire biology is different to mine, surely I would just reject it and that could kill me," Mateo said, his eyes widening at the thought of such a risky move.

"Like I said, I could quickly counter whatever problems could arise from the procedure."

"How would I absorb your DNA from a blood transfusion? Surely my white blood cells would just destroy it?" the youth asked, pleased that Bruce had taught him quite a lot about biology during their travels.

"Transfers between humans wouldn't have to factor in the consideration of completely different DNA. As an immortal mine cannot be destroyed by your immune system, and actually would attempt to bind to yours to alter it. When introduced to your biology it would likely act like an invading illness, however unlike a common cold you will not be able to fight it off," Loki lectured.

Mateo looked at the god and couldn't ignore the nagging feeling that Loki may still have been keeping something back. With such a serious topic being discussed he forced himself to speak. "What else could happen? You're holding back."

"One side effect of the procedure could be that your physical appearance might change slightly. The ability to manipulate magic lies within a being's DNA, and as you would be absorbing some of mine there might be changes in your looks," the god looked almost sheepish under Mateo's worried stare. "But considering the similarities between us already I doubt there would be many changes."

"We do have the same green eyes," Mateo said slowly.

"Black hair, mine might be straighter but that's not much of a difference," Loki inputted. "You could end up taller and perhaps paler in skin."

"And what about unseen changes? I'm not going to gain a second heart or something?" the student continued to probe.

"There are no organs I possess that would benefit you, or you would likely gain. Your strength could increase without you gaining obscene amounts of muscle, you could likely easily lift an adult once the change has finished," Loki carefully refrained from mentioning other characteristics of an average Jotun.

"And you are sure you will be able to treat any negative side effects of rejection?" Mateo asked slowly as she started to consider the proposal.

"Certain," Loki stated.

"I need to think about this," Mateo said, his gaze turned to the floor.

"Take your time," Loki said in an unexpected show of compassion.

The patience continued for a surprisingly long time, Mateo didn't see the man again until the evening when they were both in the kitchen together for their evening meal. Mateo put a plate of beef stew and still oven warm bread on front of the god before settling at his seat across from him.

"I've been thinking about your proposition," Mateo broke the silence only when they were nearly finished.

As usual Loki didn't reply but merely raised an eyebrow in a questioning manner.

"If you are still up for it I would like to accept, I could do with all the help I can get. And any changes in my appearance surely won't be too great to explain away as more than an effect of puberty."

"Then we shall carry out the procedure once we have finished eating," Loki declared. "I had a feeling you would accept so I have already gathered the necessary equipment. We shall do it in your room."

With the deadline set Mateo had a sudden unexpected bout of nerves as he washed up and followed Loki up to his bedroom. He had spent the last six hours mulling over ever pro and con of the move, and had even gone as far as to write every possible outcome down on paper. Still, the benefits of accepting Loki's offer made the most sense.

His hands shook slightly as he gripped the banister to help his unsteady feet to navigate the many stairs up to his room. Mateo wasn't sure why he felt this way. Admittedly it was a big choice but it was for the best. Perhaps it was Loki's part in leading the attempted Chitauri invasion, but Mateo was terrified of something not being right.

But he didn't want to back out of something that could save him, and might not be offered again. So before he could talk himself out of it Mateo did as instructed and took his shirt off and lay on his bed.

Loki proved to be surprisingly adept at using human medical equipment, as he demonstrated by deftly inserting one into his own arm to withdraw blood. Mateo was not normally squeamish at the sight, but at that moment he chose to look anywhere other than at the slowly filling bag.

"I shall give you two pints to start with and we shall see whether we would need to exchange more," Loki declared as he finished filling the second bag.

Mateo nodded to show his agreement and understanding, but he didn't trust himself to speak. Loki carefully swabbed the crook of Mateo's elbow and rested the cold needle against the fragile skin. "Last chance to back out."

"Do it," Mateo said decisively, and tried not to focus on his fears as the needle slid through his skin.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

To start with Mateo thought that the procedure had failed. After he had been given the blood that Loki had donated he had stayed in his room and tried to calmly read to take his mind off things. He had ended up almost being a hypochondriac for the first evening, as every involuntary twitch and temperature change became a potential symptom of him rejecting the blood. Eventually he had crashed onto his bed and had fallen asleep around midnight, but he did not have a restful night.

His host had decided that they would skip lessons until whatever changes could occur had happened, and Mateo also didn't have to cook their meals. This worked in Mateo's favour as he didn't fancy breakfast the next morning, so he stayed in bed. By lunchtime he could no longer deny that he was starting to run a temperature, although he would have sworn the castle was colder than ever. Loki took one look at him after their meal and sent him to bed to rest, and surprisingly the god appeared not half an hour after Mateo had climbed into bed. The elder carried an armful of books and wasted no time in conjuring a roaring fire in the grate, and a large comfortable chair for himself.

What started out as a slight fever gradually worsened over the following days, And Mateo was unaware of what was going on in the real world. He alternated between unconsciousness and lucid dreaming, unaware of the fact that Loki never left his side.

To his dying breath the god vowed to deny that he carefully mopped the ill child's forehead and trickled soup into his mouth. The days passed and for a short while Loki feared that he had been wrong in his theory, which was another admission he would take to the grave.

The next time Mateo was aware of his surroundings it was dark. A small amount of light came from a large candle burning to his right, but none came from the fireplace. That realisation had Mateo frowning slightly, firstly because one small candle was powerful enough for him to be able to pick out the details of the entire room. Thanks to the operation his father had paid for he had gotten used to having good eyesight, but now it was incredibly good.

Secondly he felt as warm as if he had built a huge fire in his fireplace, whereas there was no warmth to the room at all. Indeed his breath was visibly curling through the air when he exhaled. It took him a little while to register that he had an extra blanket on his bed than he normally had, but the temperature difference couldn't be explained by that one difference.

His sluggish brain took a little longer to acknowledge that his body was sending a variety of signals that he wasn't used to feeling. Under his fingertips Mateo could almost count each thread used to weave his sheets, whilst his arms and legs felt unusually light. He took a deep breath and was surprised at how refreshing the act was.

"So you lived," Loki's voice sounded from across the room.

"You almost sound disappointed," Mateo was surprised by how even and normal his voice sounded. With all the other changes he was expecting his vocal chords to have changed slightly too.

Loki didn't reply but snorted softly. The rustle of cloth followed by gentle tapping of supple boots on floor heralded the god's arrival by Mateo's bed. Mateo watched Loki inspect him before accepting the hand that was offered to him.

"So am I blue?" Mateo asked.

"See for yourself," Loki said as he handed Mateo a silver handheld mirror. A quick wave of his hand had the fireplace and every candle lit.

Mateo hesitated for a second, almost afraid to look in the mirror. But he took another delightful breath and raised the mirror.

"… _I'm_ almost disappointed," Mateo said after a long pause, wryly referencing his first sentence spoken earlier.

Before lying on the bed, however many days ago, Mateo had pictured the worst outcome. But the blue skin and manic eyes had not transferred over from Jotun to human. Although Loki had not mentioned the true appearance of Loki's true race, Thor had not been so restrained two summers ago when they had first started living in the original Avengers Tower.

His eyes were mostly bright green but now there were tiny red lines near the pupil. It was an extremely dark red, and in places it was more like a black, that seemed to bleed out from the pupil like solar flares from the sun. Thankfully the redness wasn't overly noticeable, Mateo had to hold the mirror practically against his nose to see them.

"The eyes?" Mateo asked, and luckily Loki understood.

"Jotun's have red eyes. I'm not sure why yours ended up like they did, rather than being full red. Just be grateful the changes did end up like that. They could have ended up bright blue thanks to my magic colour, and that definitely wouldn't have gone down well with your family."

"A person's magic has a defining colour?" Mateo asked with interest.

"It does, but now is not the time to lecture you about it," Loki stated and Mateo agreed. He turned back to the mirror.

The next change he spotted was that his cheekbones seemed to be sharper and more defined than before. Now his looks were more aristocratic looking than the humble traveller he had been raised as. But with his captivating eyes the change didn't seem out of place.

Finally Mateo tugged his hair forward and looked at it. For the first time in his life he gazed at it triumphantly as it lay flat against his head, without any sign of unruly tendencies. He grinned before sweeping it all back from his face.

"If you spend any more time in front of that mirror people may think you had vain tendencies," Loki's hint had Mateo putting the mirror down on his bedside table hurriedly. "Now, it is just before dawn. What say you to seeing whether we got our intended results?"

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

"I'm definitely picking things up quicker now, aren't I?" Mateo grinned as he successfully turned the puddle of water into a solid wooden chair.

It had been a week since he had awoken a changed man, and Mateo hadn't looked back. His learning had come on leaps and bounds since their experimental procedure, and even Loki had been almost impressed. Magic flowed much more easily from his fingers now, and using it became much more instinctual and natural than before. The biggest boost to Mateo's confidence in his decision had come from him not needing his wand for quite a few spells. He could still use it, and indeed the spells he had learnt at Hogwarts did flow easier from his wand rather than just from his hand gestures.

When he wasn't being tutored by Loki Mateo spent the first few days figuring out exactly how much he had changed. He needed less sleep than before, and Mateo wasn't sure how he felt about that. He hadn't been the kind of person that lazed around in bed for hours anyway, but now he happily managed on four hours sleep each night. Initially the extra time each day had confused him, but once he was used to it he happily spent the time reading.

As the god had predicted he was quite a lot stronger, although he hadn't gained any muscle. It was fortunate really, as Mateo would be able to bodily tackle full grown men without having to sacrifice his spot as a seeker. The thought of Hogwarts had Mateo worrying about how much time he had spent with Loki, but he pushed that thought down and carried on experimenting.

Even in the single week since their experiment Mateo had grown two inches. His robes were now ridiculously small for him. Loki had taken one look at him one morning and snorted, presumably in amusement. He had immediately vanished and reappeared half an hour later carrying a bundle of clothes. Mateo didn't hesitate to change, and was pleasantly surprised with Loki's choice for him. Black boots and black jeans with a green shirt were practically the same as he wore in America.

Another change was that he was lighter on his feet than before, something that Clint and Nat may almost say was a good trade off for selling his soul to Loki. And he was definitely quicker than before, his reflexes could probably rival the two assassins already, and Loki said they would only improve with training.

And another change that Mateo was incredibly grateful for was that he no longer felt the cold. Even without the Jotun characteristics coming in to play he had apparently inherited their tolerance to cold. He still felt warmth, and after long days of studying Mateo still enjoyed curling up in front of a fire, but he no longer needed four layers of clothing to walk around the castle. He caught himself happily leaving his room in just his trousers and shirt once, and Mateo smiled to himself at the contrast.

Now that he wasn't so hindered Mateo learnt new spells and a greatly increased rate. Soon he could conjure pure light in his hand, could set fires in grates and to candles, and he had recently learnt to summon a ghostly companion. The last spell had confused Mateo but Loki had explained that it could be useful in repelling dark animals. The memory of the shadowy encounter in the forest had come to Mateo's mind at that moment, and he quickly pooled all his efforts into learning how to do as Loki instructed.

It had surprised him that Loki's summoned companion was a small dragon like creature about the size of a cat. There were significant differences between Midgardian dragons and the one that Loki could conjure, for starters its wings were small and almost like an afterthought. It was hornless and smooth, its body was sinewy and muscles rippled under its skin. Whilst it couldn't likely fly, it moved incredibly fast on all fours, and Mateo wouldn't want to get anywhere near it's large and razor sharp teeth. Initially he had thought that it being ghost-like meant it couldn't harm him, but a quick nip to the ankle proved just how wrong that assumption was.

"His name is Níðhöggr, his namesake chews on the roots of Yggrasil," Loki explained.

Loki and Níðhöggr waited together to watch Mateo strain to try to create some kind of creature. It took a few days of constant effort, and many nights of soul searching before the white mist started to coalesce into some kind of shape. It took a little longer for the shape to consist of more than just four legs holding up an indistinct mass, but eventually it became an animal.

"That's a jackal," Mateo said when he finally realised what his form was.

"A golden jackal, if I am not mistaken. Which I rarely am," Loki declared.

"I was expecting a raven," the boy admitted.

"A jackal would still be a good fit, people do not often realise that they are quite as wily and intelligent as they are. Some of your cultures see them as symbols of good fortune and luck," Loki shrugged. "It's more terrifying than a beaver."

Mateo initially thought that once he had learnt to summon the ghostly companion he would be able to rest for a short while. However Loki was always the hard taskmaster and had him constantly banishing and resummoning his jackal until he could do it as quickly as Loki could. Three days later Mateo would be quite happy to never have to summon up his companion again, but did agree that if it was useful as a distraction then he had to be able to do it fast.

"How come yours can attack people though?" Mateo asked one evening as he watched Níðhöggr chase his jackal. The fox-like ghost ran straight through Loki, whilst the dragon had to round his creator to continue the chase.

"Although your magic is now much more similar to mine we are still wildly different. We might use the same spells and methods, but because you are still first and foremost a Midgardian our spells will always be different," Loki explained.

"So I could probably cast any spell you teach me and I could still pass it off as normal magic?" Mateo asked.

"If there is a Midgardian comparison then your spells would probably easily pass for what others cast. But there are many spells which I will teach you that have no Midgardian equivalent. These you cannot cast with others present without them being alerted to the fact you are more than just human now," Loki warned.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Mateo had completely lost track of the date, although he was certain that his stay was now coming closer to six months than just the agreed month. But every time he had decided to talk to Loki about returning home the god had played dirty and suggested another interesting trick to cover. Mateo had really tried to leave a few times, but his insatiable desire to learn had him agreeing to learning just one more spell.

That day was no different, Mateo had awoken determined to head home before the sun set once more on the bleak landscape outside. However his resolve wavered when Loki broached the subject of self transfiguration.

"Do you mean just your features, for a disguise?" he asked, already transfixed by the thought.

"If you want to be boring. I was more thinking of the ability to change into an animal at will," Loki said in a conversational tone.

"My Transfiguration teacher can do that, she turns into a cat. What is your form?" Mateo asked eagerly.

"Form? As in singular? Child, I can change into anything I want," Loki smirked.

Without even needing any coercing Loki rapidly shifted from dog, to raven, to serpent, to six legged horse, to something Mateo guessed was a Bilgestein. Mateo had a wide grin permanently etched onto his face as he sat cross legged on the not so cold floor and made notes. Loki happily explained the theory and process at length before ordering Mateo to try.

When he had first arrived at Loki's castle Mateo would have baulked at the thought of plunging head first into attempting to transfigure himself. But seeing as nothing else he had tried had failed he saw no reason to doubt Loki's decision to make him try this.

For the first half a day Mateo stood completely still with a look of complete concentration on his face. Whilst before he may have become frustrated he now remained calm and focussed. Loki wasn't worried about the time it took, he could sense Mateo's magic fluttering around trying to understand and follow the will of its user.

Lunchtime had just passed unobserved by the pair before any external change happened to show as success. It wasn't a grand change, but the hairs on Mateo's arms suddenly lengthened and turned a pale brown. Mateo felt the change and grinned triumphantly but didn't break his concentration.

The sun had just fallen below the horizon when Loki blinked. When his eyes opened a millisecond later he was greeted with the sight of a jackal staring up at him. The creature had an almost human looking grin lingering around its features, and Loki allowed his normally expressionless face to break into a matching smile.

Changing back to a human didn't take Mateo even a tenth of the time to figure out. Whilst the first change had required a day of thinking, it took him just shy of an hour to be back on his own two booted feet.

"Nicely done," Loki said softly.

Mateo almost fell over at that compliment. He had never had a direct word of praise from his tutor all the time he had been there, so he knew Loki was genuinely pleased with his progress.

"And now it is time to return you to your father," Loki announced. "I know you've been meaning to ask to leave for a while."

Mateo looked down in embarrassment. Whilst Loki had given him tips on ways to shield his mind the two had been much more focussed on improving his magic. He felt he had made some decent progress in building rudimentary shields to his mind, but Mateo hadn't tried to fool himself into thinking they were any match for a decent mind reader.

So instead of trying to apologise, Mateo knew the god well enough to know that such a gesture would be scorned, he merely nodded his head in agreement. He had grown a few inches whilst with Loki in the castle, so following him outside once more wasn't as much of a chore as it had been when he had arrived. Loki also had stated with certainty that he would grow even more in the next few months, and Mateo found himself disappointed to not see whether he would end up taller than Loki.

Instead of mulling that thought over he focussed on following Loki to the spot where they had appeared three and a half weeks ago. The stars were out and the temperature had dropped further than usual due to it being a cloudless night, however the changed youth didn't even flinch as the cold air ruffled through his hair.

"Summon your things," Loki ordered.

Mateo quickly gathered his thoughts and focussed on his neat pile of books on his desk. With a soft thump they landed in his hands after a short drop. Although the pile threatened to topple Mateo quickly steadied the topmost books, and just as quickly he shrunk them to fit in his pocket.

"I believe your _family_ is located in one of the metal man's residences other than the tower, I shall send you to their front door. Even if I have it wrong you shall be able to find some way of communicating with them," Loki said dismissively.

"Thank you Loki, for everything. Seriously, I hope you find content in something, or peace with your family," Mateo said.

"I do not need to find peace with them, nor do I need your foolish sentimentalities," Loki scoffed. It seemed that Loki was ready to sever their tentative bond and had already returned to his cold stern self.

"Yes you do," Mate insisted. He wasn't quite so ready to dismiss the man who he had come to respect. "Hopefully I will see you again in another pleasant situation."

"Goodbye brat," Loki smirked and flicked a dismissive hand at Mateo, and the youth found himself sucked into utter darkness.


	50. Chapter 50 - Catching Up and Moving On

**A/N: I have rewritten the following few chapters** ** _four_** **times with different scenarios occurring. I think I am finally happy with the following plot arc, so here you go! You may have to be patient for the next chapter, I am now stuck writing chapters as we go so that'll have to slot in with my normal life stuff.**

* * *

 **Chapter Fifty – Catching Up and Moving On**

Even before Mateo had steadied himself from the rather bumpy landing the heat had gotten to him. Going from a snow covered, exposed mountainside to a sun baked coast line had Mateo's body scrambling to figure out what to do. Whilst his body seemed set to create excessive amounts of sweat Mateo quickly cast a cooling spell on himself before sighing in relief as the heat dissipated.

With the immediate problem of boiling to death dealt with Mateo had the chance to turn his attention to his surroundings. He had registered he was near the coast from the scent of salt on the breeze, and the cry of gulls overhead. The vegetation around him was dry and almost crispy from the heat and lack of water, bit it stubbornly continued to live. Mateo had been dropped in a tight clump of vegetation, his arrival would have been screened by the plants around him so no awkward questions would need to be answered. Loki once again had proven he could care about something other than himself, and the thought made Mateo smile.

He carefully pushed his way through the bush directly in front of him and then had to stop abruptly to avoid stepping straight onto the road directly ahead. A quick check in both directions made sure there was no traffic bearing down on him, so Mateo hurried across the road. Opposite his arrival point he had seen a long high wall with a large wrought iron gate set into it. Through the gate Mateo could see a quite stylish house, which wasn't overly flashy but definitiely cool. He had never been to the house before, but Mateo was willing to bet that this was Tony's Malibu mansion.

There was no sign of life inside the grounds of the mansion but Mateo rang the buzzer and waited for a response. He had expected JARVIS to answer promptly as he normally did, but he stood and waited for at least a minute before he tried the buzzer again. In total he waited five minutes until there was any kind of reply.

"Stark residence," the cool female voice finally answered his calls. Despite the slightly tinny sound from the electronic device Mateo instantly recognised the voice.

"Pepper! It's me!" he said joyfully.

"Mateo?" the professional edge to Pepper's voice dropped immediately and was replaced with confused happiness.

"Hey Pep, fancy letting me in? It's a lot warmer out here than I've gotten used to," Mateo grinned despite it going unseen.

"Come right in," her voice was cut off by a metallic click before a low buzzing heralded the opening of the gates.

As soon as they were open enough for him to slide through Mateo did so before jogging up the clean concrete driveway. The drive wound artistically up the hill to the house, and Mateo was almost close to puffing by the time he had managed to get to the house. A low tunnel wound down from the left hand side of the house, and Mateo guessed it ran down to a garage under the lawns. However at that moment he chose to ignore it and headed straight for the glass front door. He eagerly jumped up the three steps and burst through the door.

His exuberant entrance was cut short as he was met with silence. The gleaming white stone and glass walled building was devoid of life and sounds. He hadn't been expecting a welcoming committee as such seeing as he returned with no warning, but he at least expected his Dad and Pepper to be there.

"Hello? JARVIS? Pepper? _Anyone?_ " Mateo called.

But his voice just bounced off the hard walls and went unanswered. Suspecting some kind of trap he gingerly drew his wand, which he had strapped to his forearm, and slowly advanced into the house. The view from the windows over the ocean were certainly impressive, but the youth ignored them in favour of searching for life in the house.

He was about to leave the open plan part of the house and head towards what he assumed was the kitchen when he heard the clatter of shoes. They sounded light and delicate, like the heels Pepper often wore, but Mateo wasn't taking any chances and raised his wand.

Pepper finally appeared up the stairs that curled around a large water feature. Her look of joy faltered slightly when she saw Mateo pointing a wand at her, but she didn't flinch.

"Sorry, had to be sure it was you," Mateo apologised and quickly sheathed his weapon.

"I think it should be us asking if it is really you," Pepper said as she quickly pulled her godson into a tight embrace. "Do you have any idea how long you've been gone?"

"Err quite a while?" he replied sheepishly.

"Ten months!" Pepper exclaimed, and it was obvious to Mateo that she was having to hold back her anger.

"W-what?" Mateo said unsteadily as he stared at Pepper.

"Don't you know? Where have you been that you don't know todays the 23rd of April?" Pepper could tell the youth was truly shocked.

"I was training, someone made an offer I couldn't refuse," Mateo saw her angry look and wilted. Although he was technically as tall as his godmother, without her heels, she had managed to make him feel like a small child once more. "Sorry."

Pepper saw the boy cowering and sighed whilst trying to let go of her anger and worry. "Come on, let's go down to Tony's workshop."

"So that's where they are hiding, I was surprised that no one was around to say hello to," Mateo gratefully grasped the change of conversation.

"It's just Tony and me here at the moment," Pepper explained.

"Oh, where's everyone else then?" the youth asked.

"Steve is training the new Avenger recruits, Thor has returned home to Asgard, Clint apparently had a hidden family who he has gone to be with, and Natasha is out searching," Pepper explained.

"And Dad?" Mateo could tell something was wrong by the way Pepper hadn't said anything.

"…There was a mishap," Pepper started.

Mateo was close to panicking and breaking down before Pepper realised her mistake. "He isn't dead, don't worry. But he did run off and we haven't seen him in a couple of months."

"What 'mishap' happened?" Mateo asked. They hadn't actually made it out of the living room and Mateo gladly took a seat on one of the large curved sofas.

"Tony was experimenting with some kind of global defence system, he incorporated the main part of Loki's staff with the programming he used to make JARVIS. Long story short he badgered Bruce to help him and they accidentally made a murderous robot. Ultron set about trying to destroy the world, with the help of a couple of mutants, and almost managed to if the two mutants hadn't had a change of heart. Unfortunately they didn't have a change of heart until after they forced the Hulk to destroy half a city. When everything was over Bruce couldn't live with the guilt and went into hiding," Pepper explained.

"So Natasha is looking for him?" Pepper nodded in answer of the question. "What is Tony working on then?"

"I honestly have no idea, I was trying to get into his workshop to tell him you'd come home but he's sealed himself inside," the blonde shrugged helplessly.

"I'll fix that," Mateo said confidently.

Pepper gave Mateo an unsure look but happily led the way down the stairs to the basement level. Through the glass door Mateo could see the wide open space dedicated to the garage, Tony's workshop, and surprisingly what looked like a small particle collider. He vowed he would get an answer about the final item when he spoke to Tony, but for now he turned his attention to the door. He couldn't even begin to guess what the override code would be, and it seemed that JARVIS had been a casualty of the fight with Ultron. Without the aid of the sentient machine Mateo had to resort to other methods. Choosing the least messy of the options he focussed his magic and sent a small burst into the electronic lock on the door. And he was astounded to see that it held fast.

"Did Tony perfect his magical shielding?" Mateo asked.

"I think so, he was worried that you had been taken as leverage so he focussed on fortifying here and the Tower. With the reactor out of his chest he's able to use the technology more widely," pepper explained.

"He had the arc reactor removed? I take it the shrapnel is gone too?" Mateo said in surprise.

"Oh yes, he had that taken out last autumn. It scared us half to death but he recovered remarkably quickly," Pepper said.

Mateo didn't say anything to that, he was feeling incredibly guilty for missing so much. Instead he focussed on the problem on hand again. With the door shielded from his magic he doubted he would be able to get through with any of Loki's methods. So instead he resorted to much less sophisticated methods. "Tony! It's me! For goodness sake open the door!"

"I was already doing that," Pepper sniffed.

"Yes but he is used to your voice and probably unconsciously tunes out when he's working. Mine might be unexpected enough to get through to him," Mateo shrugged. He could see the tousled black hair of his godfather where he was bent over a desk, and he didn't seem to have registered the sound.

Mateo sighed and tried another tactic, and focussed on a white mug sat on the desk near Tony. Although the door seemed to be protected against direct magical interference Mateo had no problem in interfering with objects in the room beyond. The mug slowly floated into the air, wobbling slightly as Mateo got used to remotely controlling the object. Once he was certain he had control he squinted slightly and made the mug move. It had the intended result and the porcelain knocked into Tony's head hard enough to make him jerk violently in surprise. Mateo saw the billionaire look at the mug in confusion before he made it float towards the door. Finally it seemed the pieces clicked into place when Tony saw him waiting behind the door, and the incredulous look that appeared on his face made Mateo feel even guiltier for leaving.

He let the mug come to rest on a worktop near the door as Tony strode over and wrenched the door open.

"What's happened to you?" Tony said in an almost accusatory tone as he stared at Mateo.

"I could almost say the same thing to you, but I know you've just been working much too hard," Mateo chuckled at Tony, and Pepper snorted like she usually did when she was trying to hide a laugh.

Tony's hair was well beyond stylishly messy and truly into the realm of exasperatedly ruffled. There were streaks of oil on his chin and huge bags under his eyes telling of very few restful nights.

"You're deflecting," Tony accused. "Something's changed about you."

"I'm growing up," Mateo said defensively.

"It's more than that. There are physiological changes that cannot be attributed to puberty. For example, your bone structure has changed completely," Tony declared.

"Alright, there have been some changes, but it's all for the better," Mateo admitted. "Can we come in and I'll explain?"

Tony didn't reply but pivoted and strode back into his lair. In no time at all he had excavated three chairs and had set them close together. He claimed one and pointedly looked at the other two so that they would sit down. To avoid being thrown out they did so quickly and Mateo started explaining where he had been.

It was a long tale, the news of Mateo's fight with the basilisk hadn't made it to America and a careless sentence evolved into another hour of talking. Pepper looked worriedly at him but after proving that the skelegro and the help of his host had left him with no signs of injury at all. He was able to effectively distract her by quickly moving his tale onwards to where he had been over the summer.

"What do you mean you were with Loki?" Pepper thundered.

Although she hadn't directly been threatened by the god, she had had to watch her boyfriend carry a nuclear bomb through a portal into space. Seeing as Tony had suffered from PTSD from that it was unsurprising she was less than impressed with Mateo's decision to stay with the god.

"He helped me improve my magic way beyond any teacher at Hogwarts could have. Seeing as there is a megalomaniac after me I thought it was prudent to get as much of an advantage as possible," Mateo countered.

"He hasn't possessed you has he?" Tony said as he closely inspected Mateo's eyes.

"No, he offered to give me a blood transfusion so I could better grasp the kind of magic he was trying to teach me. It worked and sure my hair changed a bit, and I might be a bit stronger than before, but I'm much better at casting magic than before," it was obvious to both adults that Mateo was certain his decision had been the right one.

"How much better at magic are you?" asked Tony in a rather inquisitorial tone.

Mateo rolled his eyes and stood. Before Tony and Pepper could even react he had shrunk down into the form of a jackal. It barked, almost as if it was laughing, as it stared up at the two stunned faces staring down at it. When the two seemed to be frozen permanently the jackal stood and wound itself around their legs in an almost cat like gesture. However it helped to break the silence by proving that Mateo had turned into a real animal, and that it wasn't just an illusion.

"Mateo?" Pepper said faintly.

"That's quite an improvement," Tony agreed.

"I know right?" Mateo grinned once he had returned to human form.

"What else can you do?" Tony had successfully been distracted, and Mateo wasn't going to refuse to talk about his lessons. Especially seeing as the only other topic of conversation was about the break up of their family.

"How about we move this discussion upstairs and get a bite to eat?" Pepper interrupted when Mateo paused for breath half an hour later.

"If we must," Tony sighed and dramatically swept whatever he had been working on into the bin before standing.

"What were you working on? You shouldn't just bin it you know," Mateo said admonishingly.

"It was a tracking bracelet, the base design is similar to my ones for the suit so I know where it is if someone tries to steal it. However it was altered so that it could work around magic so I could clap it on you so I can keep an eye on where you disappear off to," Tony admitted.

"Then keep working on it, as soon as it's done then I'll wear it," Mateo swore.

"Aren't you going to tell me off for being restrictive and stalkerish? Clint said something to that effect when I brought up the idea," Tony looked at the youth in surprise.

"Well I know how much it would reassure you, and Dad when he comes back again, I'm not naïve enough to think that I am not above being kidnapped if I go out on my own. That'll make sure that I'm safe," Mateo walked across the room and retrieved the bracelet. "How were you making it work?"

"Magic only seems to react negatively with artificial energy generators. So a phone shorts out because it relies on an electrical battery, same principle with Neville and the tablet on the plane when he first touched it. However magic seems compatible with my arc reactor because I use a natural energy source to power it, and I know this will work as I got my suit working in Hogwarts last year. So it is just a case of fitting the tracking device and perhaps a link to JARVIS, then creating a small enough arc reactor," Tony explained as he checked the tangle of electrics for damage.

"How big is this bracelet going to be? If it would help you could build it into an armguard it it's going to be bulky," Mateo suggested.

"That won't be necessary, I'm sure I can get it to work on a small scale," Tony said determinedly.

"And you can come back to it later, but right now we are going upstairs," Pepper said in a tone that brokered no argument. Neither of the men did and instead meekly followed Pepper from the room and to the kitchen.

"When did you last sleep?" Mateo asked as he saw how Tony downed an espresso without blinking.

"Possibly three days ago," Tony shrugged as he headed for the coffee pot.

"I think not, you're putting unnecessary strain on your heart," Mateo said as he pulled the caffeine away from Tony's hand. "Go take a nap."

"But I'm your godfather, you can't order me around!" Tony protested.

"Well I'm thirteen, I'm allowed to be a petulant teenager," Mateo countered.

The two adults in the room were shocked into silence by that statement. Although Mateo had said it in jest, the tone it came out in was almost confrontational and unlike his normal way of speaking. He could see their opinion of him changing, the small adorable boy was fading to be replaced with someone with their own will. Mateo wasn't sure he liked the changes, and almost wished he could return to his tutor.

Eventually Pepper broke the silence and told both her boys to go sleep, she had picked up the stifled yawns that Mateo had failed to hide.

"Do you have a spare room I can borrow?" Mateo asked as Tony led the way from the kitchen.

"Why would you need a spare room? You've got your own room here y'know," Tony threw over his shoulder.

"I have a room here too?" Mateo stopped in his tracks.

"Sure, you're part of the family kiddo," when he realised that he was alone Tony stopped and turned around.

Mateo kept his gaze to the floor, even when his godfather approached.

"Kiddo?" Tony tried to get Mateo to react, but eventually had to nudge his chin up with a finger. He hadn't prepared himself to see tears in the youth's eyes.

"Sorry," Mateo apologised as he quickly scrubbed his eyes with his right sleeve. "It's been a long day and a lot to take in. Thanks for putting me up here."

"Hey squirt," Tony said, using one of the nicknames the Avengers had given him. "You're my godson, which means you are my responsibility. And even if you weren't you are part of the family. How could I leave you outside? Plus I don't want Big Green pummelling me into the ground when he gets back because I didn't look after you."

Mateo chuckled at the thought of the Other Guy using Iron Man as a punching bag. Although the scene was more like a cat trying to swat a gnat it provided the little boost of cheer they needed at that time. However it helped to close a bit of the rift that had formed between them in the workshop earlier.

Tony cracked a grin, happy his efforts to cheer up his godson had been successful. He led Mateo to his own room before retiring to the master suite, leaving Mateo staring at his room.

Like the living room below, one wall of Mateo's room was entirely built of glass so that he could see out to the sea below. The other walls were painted aquamarine with gold detailing, like an echo of his dad's room had been in the Tower. A small cardboard box sat by the bed, and a quick inspection revealed that it was full of Mateo's various mementos and trinkets.

The wardrobe was full of a range of clothes, and it took Mateo a few seconds to realise the logic behind the seemingly random selection. On the left were all the clothes he had owned before he left for his second year at Hogwarts. And then progressing towards the right wall was increasingly larger clothes, all with the shop tags still attached. He had to swallow back a huge lump in his throat when he saw how optimistic everyone had been that he would be back soon.

In an attempt to block out the shame and guilt Mateo slammed his wardrobe shut and stalked to the bathroom. He took a scalding hot shower and quickly towelled off. Luckily there was enough clothing that fit him in the draws so that he didn't have to look in the wardrobe again. Once he was dressed in more comfortable lounge clothes than his school uniform Mateo flopped onto his bed and pressed the control to darken the windows.

Although he tried to avoid it Mateo barely lasted an hour before he was reaching for his laptop and switching it on. He didn't want to look for more information about the Avengers, Pepper's loose explanation would be much more factual than anything he'd find in American media. However he was interested in the celebrity websites like _OK Magazine_ and for the first time in his life he actively sought out photos of his family. It almost felt like a taboo subject to ask Tony and Pepper about his dad, but he needed answers.

Since the incident a couple of months ago the gossip magazines had been littered with pictures of the superhuman group. Although the images were just snaps of their backs and such it was obvious that the paparazzi were desperate to get photos of the shamed Avengers. The articles on them were also littered with speculation about Bruce Banner's whereabouts, although some were happy to suggest he should be locked up as soon as he was found.

However as he trawled backwards through the articles before Ultron wreaked havoc in Sokovia Mateo started to find articles he was actually interested in. Back when everyone viewed the Avengers with almost hero status regard there were plenty of shots of them doing mundane things. Most often were the photos of Tony travelling to various Stark Industry events, but there were a smattering of the others going to and fro. Bruce appeared semi-regularly, always with Tony, usually going between SI sites with their work. Sometimes he had gone to give talks at a variety of educational or scientific institutions, again always accompanied by Tony but often Clint had been snapped lingering in the background.

After quickly collating a large number of photos Mateo started looking through them and really scrutinised his father. It didn't take him long to see the signs of worry and stress that were visible on Bruce. There were more lines and grey hair than Mateo would expect for a year of normal ageing, and he always had worrying large dirk circles under his eyes. When Mateo had last seen his dad in his second year Bruce had started to walk straight and with a faint air of confidence. In these photos he had started to hunch over, and he had started to wring his hands like he had done when they had first met. It wasn't easy to tell from the images but Mateo had a hunch that his adoptive father had also lost a reasonable amount of weight.

Half an hour after he had started searching Mateo slapped his laptop shut and dropped it rather heavily to the floor by his bed. He rolled over and buried his head under his pillows while he wriggled under the duvet. The images had shown how much his dad had been worrying about him, and how much he had suffered. And for that Mateo felt a guilt that he wasn't sure he would be able ever get rid of.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Despite Pepper and Tony making as much of an effort as possible to keep Mateo engaged and entertained there was no denying that the practically empty house had a depressing air to it. Whenever they fell silent the quiet of the house seemed to press in on them, and made Mateo wish even for the company of Professor Lockhart. When he realised how desperate he had gotten for some kind of company Mateo forced himself out of his melancholy ways and started to look for a solution.

It was only by chance that he stumbled across a very old and weather stained piece of paper, which held the details to his possible solution. He didn't want to alert Tony to his plans, so Mateo took his Stark Phone and headed outside to a secluded spot he often visited under a large tree. He enjoyed the Malibu sun and heat, but the particular spot he had claimed was surrounded by bushes and therefore shielded from the house so he couldn't be spied on. Tony probably knew where he was going but had never interrupted his private time, so Mateo took it as being okay for him to be out there.

Mateo wasn't too hopeful that the mobile number he had was still in use, however he fiddled nervously with his phone for a long while before he pressed the call button.

He was almost about to put the phone down as it kept ringing without answer. He actually was in the process of lowering it to tap the button when he heard the call connect as the other person picked up the phone.

"Hello John speaking," it had been four years since Mateo had last heard the voice but he immediately knew that he had been able to contact the right person.

"Hello John, it's Mateo Johnson. You might not remember me but we met four years ago," Mateo started hesitantly.

"No no I remember you, I'd just thought that you would likely have lost my number by now. How are you doing?" John said quickly.

"Is this a bad time, you sound a bit tired… Did I get the time difference wrong?" Mateo said hurriedly, the man did sound tired and a bit distracted.

"It's nothing I wouldn't be used to anyway, and I was already awake," replied the doctor. "How are you?"

"I'm… Well… You see…" Mateo hadn't actually planned how he was going to talk this through, and suddenly found himself unable to continue.

"Is this about your Dad?" John asked gently.

"How do you know?"

"It might not have been stated directly in the papers but my friend has an excellent way of finding out classified information," Mateo could tell the man was smiling at something.

"Yes he's missing," Mateo started slowly. "My godfather's trying to find him but they aren't having any luck…"

"And did you want us to help?" John offered.

"Us? Why would I need you to help?" Mateo asked in confusion.

"I thought you wanted me to ask Sherlock Holmes to help find him."

"Who's Sherlock Holmes?" Mateo was completely caught out by the sudden change in conversation direction.

"He's my friend, a consulting detective is his own given title but more accurately he's a private investigator," John explained.

"He sounds useful, but I have a feeling that the case of my Dad is far beyond what he can do," Mateo said unhappily, then he took a deep breath and quickly said what he had meant to ask since the start. "I was actually wondering if I could come and stay with you until I go back to school, staying with my godfather is depressing and I don't want to stay somewhere that reminds me of dad."

"I only got about half of that," John said after a short pause. "But if you want to come and stay then feel free. However I have to warn you I recently got married, so you will have to deal with my wife."

"Oh, sorry I didn't realise," Mateo said, and fervently wished he had never called. "Congratulations by the way, but I wouldn't want to butt in and make things awkward."

"Hang on I hadn't finished," John interrupted. "I was going to say that there are other options. If you want to come over then you are most welcome to stay with me and Mary, or you can have my old room with Sherlock, or I have other friends you can stay with. No one needs to know who you are, so you we can create a cover story for you. Actually when we last met you reminded me of Sherlock, you could always pose as his cousin."

"Do you mind if I come visit? If it doesn't work I'll go back to America but I just need to be away from all this for a while," Mateo asked again, but now a small note of hope tinged his voice.

"Don't worry about it, just text me when you are going to be arriving at Heathrow and I'll come pick you up," John said kindly.

"Thank you, I'll see you in a couple of days," Mateo tried to make it blatantly obvious how grateful he was with those few words.

Neither of them were very fond of talking for the sake of it, so they soon hung up. As soon as the mobile's screen turned black once more Mateo slumped back into the dusty grass and let out an explosive sigh. It had been a long shot but the attempt had paid off. Tony would probably be hurt by his wanting to leave, but Mateo hoped that Pepper would see his point of view and talk sense into the billionaire. Either way, he now had something to do, and Mateo almost happily stood and strode back to the house to start packing.

That is how Tony was first alerted to something being afoot. He had emerged from his lab for the first time in a few days in order to have a shower. Normally he wouldn't be bothered by maintaining a decent level of personal hygiene but he had accidentally spilled a bottle of ferric chloride over his clothes and hand. So after mopping up the worst of it he needed to shower and change.

It was as he passed Mateo's room and saw the door ajar that Tony spotted something odd. Normally his godson could be found with his nose in a book, or outside in a shady spot. But he was busy packing.

"Alright squirt?" Tony ignored the itchy feeling of his hand and casually strolled into Mateo's room.

"Oh, hey Tony," it wasn't just his imagination, Mateo definitely didn't sound happy to see him.

"What are you up to? Term doesn't start again for another four months," he said, intentionally acting dumb. Tony was a genius and had already pretty much knew what was going on.

"An old friend of mine got in contact and asked if I wanted to go and visit. I haven't seen him literally in years, so I thought I would take him up on the offer. I'll take my phone and keep in regular contact with you," Mateo rambled on.

"Too cool to hang out with your old godfather?" Tony joked, then immediately regretted it when he saw the guilty grimace that appeared on Mateo's face.

"No, it's not that," he said slowly. "It's just difficult being here. Everything is different, it's quiet with no one around… It's just _wrong_."

"Things rarely stay the same forever," Tony said quietly, trying to be comforting but practical at the same time.

"I know Tony. But there's nothing the same. Dad's gone, the Avengers have split up and are living in different places, you've got a tonne of research and work. It's just me, Garuda, and Augustus now," Mateo definitely looked like he was holding back tears.

Tony didn't have a response to that, as it was all true. He had wrongly assumed Mateo was okay with being on his own and had thrown himself into trying to find Bruce. Whilst the teen probably had been happy for Tony to spend most of his efforts searching for his father, apparently he had screwed up and hadn't given his godson enough attention. He knew what it was like for things to suddenly change, the loss of both his parents in one accident was probably close to what Mateo was experiencing. It was probably worse for Mateo, at least his honourary family had given him love and attention, Tony's parents had been too busy for their offspring.

So instead of trying to find the appropriate response, Tony instead pulled the youth into a hug and they instead stood in silence.

"Erm Tony, why do you smell of acid?" Mateo asked after five minutes.

"Oh yeah I need a shower," Tony replied as he remembered why he had left his workshop. Now that he thought about it his hand was starting to look a little red.

"You spilled acid and haven't cleaned it off yet?" Tony had to bite back a grin as he heard his old godson reappear. "Go wash it off quickly!"

"Yes sir," Tony mock saluted the teen before walking out of the room again. He was quickly back though. "Mateo, I don't mind you going. Honestly, go and have fun with this friend. Just remember to ring, and keep your phone on you."


	51. Chapter 51 - England

Chapter Fifty One – England

 **A/N: So as a little fun addition I actually make an appearance in this chapter, briefly. Try and guess who!**

Mateo had managed to convince Tony to let him get a normal flight to England, so that they wouldn't attract attention. This idea meant that the billionaire had to stay at home so he didn't blow their cover, even Tony had agreed to the possibility of him doing that. It seemed that even his genius brain couldn't quite grasp the concept of subtlety.

So it was a very quiet departure from America that Mateo experienced, with no tearful or public farewell at the check-in lines. The taxi driver that had gotten him to the airport received enough of a tip to keep silent about his passenger's possible identity. He had booked the ride under a false name so the driver only had suspicions to go on.

His passport gained him some raised eyebrows, but thankfully no one seemed to care that the son of the Hulk was travelling on a plane, and he got through checks just as easily. Once through the searches and into the shops everyone was too busy mooching through the duty free to care about a lone teen.

The actual flight was rather dull in Mateo's opinion. There may have been numerous films available to watch, and he did quite happily flick through the entire range before selecting one, but it wasn't the same as watching Clint try to teach Thor how to bluff in poker.

For his first official flight Mateo couldn't really complain though, Tony had bought him a business class seat. Mateo had had to argue him down from first class, stating that a youth travelling on their own probably wouldn't be found in first class. However with his most expensive looking, yet most casual clothes he could get away with, Mateo didn't look too out of place of the other people in business class. He did get a few confused looks from the flight attendants but they left him alone.

Just shy of twelve hours after boarding the plane in America Mateo stepped out into the jet bridge of Heathrow airport. Although he technically was British he had to queue in the longer lines to have his passport checked and his visa examined. Again the woman checking his passport raised here eyebrows when she read the name, but he was let through without comment.

One thing that Mateo had never witnessed was the emotional reunions at airports. Having always been through private routes he hadn't encountered the masses of people waiting in the huge buildings waiting for their friends. A husband greeted his wife whilst holding a bunch of flowers; a group of youths broke apart to meet various parents having obviously just returned from a trip; two young children squealed happily as their grandparents appeared through the corridor…

It wasn't all happy though, Mateo noted. To one side near the wall another teen around his own age was sobbing brokenly as her mother hugged her. Close by the father and a sister stood nearby, the latter was barely any more in control of her tears than the youngest of the four. Mateo looked away quickly; he didn't want to know what had caused such an unhappy scene in a place of joy. Instead he left them to their sorrow and tried to find his ride.

As soon as he knew when he was flying Mateo had rung John again and had let him know, and the doctor had promised to come and pick him up. It took a few sweeps of the room for him to find said doctor, the man had been hidden by a group of students wearing sombreros.

John hadn't changed much since they had met in Africa so many years ago Mateo realised. He had a few more grey hairs but the sad weight he had been carrying on his shoulders had disappeared.

"Do you have any more growing to do?" John asked once they had greeted each other.

"Maybe, I'm not sure," Mateo answered truthfully. He was already standing at five foot eight, and although his abnormally fast growth spurt had slowed he didn't know if he would continue to grow. He didn't know how tall his parents had been, but he knew he was still a good few inches of Loki's height.

"It'll be nice to be around to find out," John said, and Mateo's hopes jumped slightly at the positive sign that their friendship would continue. "Come on, I haven't got a car myself but I have a taxi waiting."

"Where are we going? I said I don't mind where I go and that still stands," Mateo said.

"I need to check in on Sherlock, make his has actually moved in the last two days, and depending on how you get on with him you can either stay there or come home with me," John suggested.

"I did a bit of research on Sherlock Holmes, and I am quite looking forward to meeting him," said Mateo as they climbed into the taxi.

To distract himself whilst he was waiting for his flight out Mateo had indeed googled the consulting detective. He and John had had a brilliant closure rate of their cases, indeed Mateo had only found a handful out of the scores of cases that they hadn't solved. If Mateo got on well enough with the man he had a very vague idea about hiring the man to help solve some of his own mysteries. What he could hire Sherlock to research would be limited due to him not being able to reveal the existence of magic, but there would be some things he could look into.

Mateo wasn't entirely surprised that it was once again raining in London. As he watched the raindrops chase each other down the window of the taxi he mused whether it was the default weather setting for the country. He snorted at that thought, which drew a bemused look from John.

Thanks to the typically slow traffic of London it took them over an hour to get from the airport to 221B Baker Street. All the while the rain hadn't let up, and had actually worsened to the point they were forced to make a dash from the cab to the front door. Even in that short distance Mateo was drenched through, and his bag was looking rather sodden despite the waterproof material. He grimaced, thinking how easily he could have them dried out in a heartbeat but being unable to due to his current company.

"Mrs Hudson," John loudly calling out pulled Mateo's thoughts back to the present with a jolt.

The hallway they were looked dated and worn, as if it hadn't had an serious attention given to it in many years. But the cheery duck egg blue wallpaper with white vines gave a nice feel to the slightly run down area, and the few furniture pieces again just made it feel homely. A set of wood board stairs with dark banisters ran upwards, whilst a corridor ran to a fuzzy glass door at the back.

It was from that door that a short lady appeared, and immediately set upon John. Mateo stayed near the front door and tried to hide a grin as the elderly lady started mothering John.

"It's been too long John, your looking well though. How is Mary? And little Ellie? Give me your coat it's soaked through, I'll put it on the radiator in the kitchen to help it dry. And who is this?" the woman's constant chattering came to a stop as she finally noticed Mateo lingering by the door.

"Mrs Hudson this is my friend Mateo, we met in Africa when I went travelling," John explained. "Mateo, this is Mrs Hudson. She kept an eye on Sherlock and I when we lived here. Now she only has Sherlock to deal with."

"That's a full time job by itself, you know what he's like for making odd noises at all hours of the night. At least he hasn't used a gun on the wall since the last time you stopped him," Mrs Hudson grumbled. "Come on in, I'll take your coat too. I assume yours going to meet Sherlock? I'll bring up some tea."

"Thank you Mrs Hudson," Mateo smiled and gave her his coat.

"Goodness this is thin, why didn't you put something better on? Give me your bag too, I'll prop it against another radiator to dry it out a bit. How long are you staying John?" Mrs Hudson seemed to enjoy talking.

"A couple of hours at least," John said as he started heading up the stairs.

Mateo shot one final grateful glance at the lady before he followed the doctor. The wooden stairs had once been painted but frequent use had worn away the centre to reveal the plain wood beneath. The wallpaper changed to a lined grey style, and was only broken by a frosted glass window. At the top of the stairs were two doors, one was shut but the other was wide open.

"Sherlock?" John called out, this time in softer tones than when he had been attracting Mrs Hudson's attention.

Whilst John looked around to find his friend Mateo took the opportunity to take in the room. Each wall had a different wall paper style on them, green, red, and black and white. Normally such chaos would clash hectically, but with the contents of the room it made the chaos work. Despite the rather chaotic feel to the room it felt homely, and safe.

"No cases?" John asked as he moved towards a bundle of clothes on the sofa.

With a nudge the mound uncurled into a human. Wild curly black hair framed a pale face with incredibly blue eyes. The sharp angular features coupled with the pale skin made the man look almost unsettling. It didn't help that as soon as his bleary gaze had landed on Mateo he had sat bolt upright and started staring at him with unsettling intensity.

"Seriously Sherlock, when was the last time you tidied? Scrap that, when did you last move?" John asked as he wound around the room clearing two seats for them to sit down.

"Err hello?" Mateo said as the unnerving gaze continued to bore into him. If he didn't know better Mateo would have thought the man was a legilimens trying to read his deepest thoughts.

"You're not normal," Sherlock spoke at last.

"Sherlock," John said in warning.

"No it's alright, I've been called worse," Mateo shrugged. "And to be honest with my family you could hardly call me normal anymore."

"Mateo Banner, adoptive son of Bruce Banner, currently living in America but schooling elsewhere. From your accent I would guess somewhere in England but not a mainstream institute. You need assistance in tracking things down, but not your father," Sherlock rattled off.

"How…? Never mind," Mateo shook his head. "You're right, although I can't elaborate on what you've already deduced. Dad would have my hide if I told anyone where I go each year."

"And we don't need to know," John quickly cut in to stop Sherlock asking questions. The consulting detective almost pouted at being cut off but didn't push any further.

"So what cases have you worked on recently?" Mateo asked tentatively as he sat down on a chair that John cleared.

Mateo took a back seat in the conversation as he listened to John and Sherlock chat and bicker. It was clear that although they only talked about small simple cases they had been through tough times, and it had only brought them closer. Mrs Hudson's treatment of them was quite amusing too, and as much as both men tried to pretend they didn't want her mothering them it was obvious they all enjoyed it.

Although Sherlock stayed slightly aloof and distant to Mateo John and Mrs Hudson soon had him feeling at home. Although he was quite sure he wouldn't want another cup of tea for a few months.

So it was surprising for him that when John announced that he had to go Sherlock stated that Mateo was going to be staying there.

"Sorry what?" John stopped to look at his friend.

"Mateo'll stay here, he can have your room," Sherlock stated.

"He's not a dog to argue over," John said admonishingly. "Mateo, what do you want to do?"

"I'll stay here, I'd be worried about being a burden on you and Mary. So staying here would solve that problem," Mateo said reassuringly.

"Sherlock isn't exactly a hospitable host," John warned.

"No but Mrs Hudson is, and I'm sure she'd happily have me pop in for a chat," Mateo laughed whilst Sherlock muttered indignantly in the background.

"Well you have my number if you change your mind," John reminded him before turning on Sherlock. "Now remember to actually talk to him Sherlock, and not like how you talk to your skull."

Mateo shot a confused look at the pair before noticing the skull on the mantelpiece. Somehow he didn't think John was talking about Shakespeare renditions.

"Feed him, show him to his bedroom. If you go out remember to tell him where you are going, or take him with you. If you do take him then for the love of God don't leave him at the scene like you do with me," John continued.

"Fine, happy?" Sherlock snapped back, almost like a petulant teenager.

"I will be if we last the week without incident," John sighed. "Have fun Mateo, I'll come over Saturday evening to check in on you both."

And with that the ex-soldier strode out of the room, and he didn't look back. Mateo thought the man's shoulders looked a little tense though, showing his worry about leaving the minor with the sociopath. As soon as the man had left the room Mateo turned his gaze back to Sherlock, and jolted when he saw the intense gaze boring into him once more.

It was only when they heard the front door slam did Sherlock break the silence. "So, you aren't normal."

"Am I the only one experiencing a sense of déjà vu?" Mateo asked rhetorically.

"Well you could hardly reveal the fact you can control magic with John in the room. He might think he is smart but he really is blind sometimes," Sherlock said mildly.

"What?" Mateo could hear his pulse in his ears. "What do you mean I can control magic?"

"There's no need to act dumb, I know you have that pathetic Statute of Secrecy to maintain but it's woefully insufficient for keeping your world hidden from modern technology," Sherlock said dismissively.

"How… What… Just, how do you know?" Mateo spluttered.

"Know you have magic, or know about magic?" Sherlock smiled.

"Both," Mateo said shortly. He felt slightly trapped, and the smile on Sherlock's face only helped enhance Mateo's feeling of being a mouse trapped by a cat.

"Well magic existing isn't widely known, however those who do know are incredibly lazy with the secret. My brother knows of everything that goes on with the muggle government, and he still hasn't got around to banning me from the archives. I have his card you see, and it's good for half an hour before someone thinks to check the right Holmes is in the building. Half an hour is plenty of time to dig through the government documents, and it takes even less time than that to read all the files on magic," Sherlock said lazily.

"They keep the existence of magic on file? That's insane," Mateo shook his head.

"Paper is safer than digital storage, no one can hack it," Sherlock stated. "Now, I can tell you have magic because your holding your right arm stiffly as if trying to make sure something doesn't bulge out from your sleeve. Second your boots are made of a leather I cannot identify, and I have made a study of identifying each type of leather from a distance," Sherlock noticed Mateo's bemused expression and snorted. "You'd be surprised how much you can tell by someone's shoes, which is immeasurably useful when finding a criminal mastermind."

"So you think I have magic from a stiff arm and my shoes?" Mateo tried to sound dismissive whilst he fought down the rising panic. Although he had done nothing to reveal the existence of magic he knew Sherlock wouldn't leave the topic alone until he had an answer.

"And there's the fact that I know someone who is a witch," Sherlock finished.

"You could have just said that from the start," Mateo sighed and felt a lot of pressure drain from his frame.

"Where would be the fun in that?" Sherlock, for the first time, appeared normal as he grinned at Mateo's annoyed face.

Before Mateo could think of a witty comeback Sherlock's phone started ringing. However the consulting detective didn't seem at all bothered about picking it up. Mateo looked pointedly at the phone, but Sherlock didn't move.

"You aren't going to answer it?" Mateo asked.

"Phones are dull," Sherlock replied. "You are infinitely more interesting."

Mateo partially felt flattered, but he needed time to gather his thoughts. So to get that time he answered the phone. "Sherlock Holmes' phone."

"Who's this?" the male voice sounded slightly rough, either from shouting or smoking Mateo couldn't tell. The man had a slight London accent, but not full blown cockney, and sounded like he was used to being obeyed.

"Erm I'm Matt Holmes, Sherlock's cousin," Mateo blurted out.

"There's three of you…" the man sounded close to tears.

"I'm only half a Holmes," Mateo tried to reassure the stranger. "Anyway, how can I help?"

"We've got a case that he might be interested in. Stoke Newington Cemetery, in the church," and before Mateo could ask any questions the man hung up on him.

"Come on, Stoke Newington Cemetery," he turned around and tried to chivvy Sherlock into rising from the sofa.

"And why should I go?" Sherlock asked, and Mateo got a feeling that it was some kind of test.

"Because if you don't I won't answer any of your questions," Mateo smiled with triumph.

Sherlock gave him an almost glare before he smoothly stood and shed his silk dressing gown. Underneath he was dressed in black trousers and a deep red shirt. Before Mateo could blink he was striding to the door, slipping on shoes as he went and grabbing a grey coat and blue scarf off a hook.

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Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade had no idea what to expect as he waited inside the ruined church. It was still raining hard, and he was glad that the crumbling church still had a semi decent roof to shield him and his men from the weather. But even the irregular drips of water on his head and the chatter of people working around him couldn't distract him from the worrisome thoughts bouncing round his head.

The latest crime scene was a puzzling one, and so with Sherlock taking cases once more he had thought that it would be useful to have the man's assistance on this. What he hadn't expected was the young man to pick up the phone, and to declare that he was Sherlock's cousin. Lestrade was pretty sure he was going to have _two_ Holmes' at his crime scene, if this Matt was anything like his cousin he wouldn't be able to resist coming. What he wasn't sure about was if Anderson would survive the encounter.

For a short while he debated with himself about warning everyone else about the impending disaster, but eventually he decided against it. They deserved their ten minutes peace before the inevitable whirlwind descended. Also their reactions would be all the more amusing if he got to see their shock at meeting the newest Holmes face to face.

All too soon there came the announcement across the radio that Sherlock had arrived with a friend in tow. That caused some confusion, as everyone knew John Watson and referred to him by name. Actually most of them preferred it when the man was around as he was the only one who could keep Sherlock in line. Lestrade wasn't the only one who watched the recently unsealed doorway with bated breath.

Sherlock's familiar tall lanky frame quickly appeared from the darkness and swept past everyone to get straight to the scene of the crime. Quite a few people had subtly moved to the sides of the room to avoid attracting the attention and ire of the consulting detective. However for once Sherlock wasn't the centre of attention, not that he seemed to notice or care.

Pretty much everyone was still staring at the doorway, where a smaller figure had appeared to the side of Sherlock. He was only a couple of inches shorter than Lestrade, and as skinny as Sherlock. The youth looked around fifteen to the inspector, and the family resemblance was uncanny. He had shoulder length black hair that spiked slightly despite the weight of rainwater in it, with prominent cheekbones. Where Sherlock had piercing blue eyes the younger man had vivid green eyes, although both colours were unnaturally bright.

Lestrade almost snorted when he noticed they had dressed almost the same too. Although Sherlock had been wearing his customary coat Lestrade had spotted the flash of a red shirt as he slid his phone into his inner jacket pocket. The youth in the doorway hadn't got a coat, or even a jacket, and was standing there wearing a soaked through green shirt with black trousers. However he didn't seem at all worried by the freezing cold water trickling from his hair down his neck.

But the greatest difference between Sherlock and his cousin was their behaviour. Whilst Sherlock had always been dismissive of anyone and didn't care about their opinion of him, the boy froze as he noticed the eyes of everyone on him.

"Err, hello?" Lestrade was startled by how _normal_ the boy acted, he seemed pretty uncomfortable with the attention.

So, to save the youth, he waved him over. "Alright everyone, back to work."

Lestrade was glad that he was respected enough that everyone listened to him and turned back to whatever they had been doing. There had been a few instances when Sherlock had been the centre of media attention and his men hadn't been quite so swift in complying with his orders. Matt danced through the room, weaving between people and making sure he didn't get in the way of anyone. It took slightly longer than Sherlock's passage across the room but he was soon standing by Lestrade's side with a tentative smile on his face.

"I'm Matt Holmes," the youth clarified.

"Detective Inspector Lestrade," he held his hand out and the youth gripped it.

"So, what does Sherlock do?" Matt asked curiously.

"Hasn't he explained what he does?" Lestrade replied.

"It's Sherlock," Matt shot back with a wry grin. "His answers rarely if ever answer the question you initially asked. Plus I haven't been in contact with him for years."

The inspector had to smother a laugh with a sudden coughing fit, and he immediately decided that he liked the youth. He walked towards the body and gestured for Matt to follow.

"He insults us for not noticing tiny details before spurting a tonne of information he deduced from said details. Then he's likely to go haring off after a clue that he fails to tell us about. After that he'll lead us to the criminal and let us arrest them, then the whole cycle starts again,"

"I'm surprised you haven't killed him yet," Mateo chuckled.

"I've come close on a number of occasions, especially when he revealed that he had faked his own death," Lestrade admitted.

"Yeah I probably would have too," Lestrade was starting to feel that although Sherlock was a lost cause, there could be hope for this Holmes.

"Hang on, is it a good idea to let the kid see the body?" Donovan stopped the pair before they got close to the proper scene. "I mean how old are you kid?"

"I'm sixteen," Matt said confidently, and Lestrade couldn't detect a lie.

"You're a minor so you shouldn't be here," Donovan declared.

"Well I can hardly go home when my responsible adult is right there," Matt countered as he gestured at Sherlock.

Lestrade decided to keep out of the argument. Although his word was final, and he thought that Matt could handle the sight, he wanted to see who would win in this battle of wits. Personally his money was on Matt, Sally was smart but not the fastest thinker and had a tendency to be stubborn.

"He's not much of a responsible adult to let you come out with a coat," Sally shot back.

"Well we didn't have much time to get ready," Matt shrugged, "and my coat was already drenched. Besides, I'm not cold."

"You're soaked through!" Donovan sounded indignant on his behalf.

"Well if I get a cold I'll let you know so you can feel smug. But I can tell you now you're likely to be disappointed," Matt smiled.

"Colds are one thing, bodies are another," Lestrade at least had to hand it to Donovan, she wasn't letting up.

"Look, my parents died when I was a child, and I was a witness to their deaths. Seeing a body now isn't going to give me any nightmares," Matt's admission caused those within earshot to freeze in surprise.

The emotionless statement left Donovan floundering for a few seconds, but eventually she was able to force out a reply, "Sorry."

"It's alright, I was small so I don't really remember it," Matt's attempt to reassure her didn't really make the situation any less awkward. In fact his casual dismissal of a horrific event almost made it worse.

"How have we never heard of that?" another detective butted in, and Greg almost started at the realisation that the three of them had had a large audience.

"Do you think Mycroft would leave evidence of it around for the media to get their mitts on?" Mateo asked with an eyebrow. When no one replied he seemed to decide that he had won the argument. "So, crime scene?"

With that Matt strode forward past the still shocked Sally and headed towards the body, and his cousin.

"Good attempt, but did you ever expect you'd beat a Holmes in an argument?" Lestrade gave Donovan a commiserative pat on the shoulder as he followed after Matt.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Mateo was glad of the chance to get away from the female detective. He hadn't actually caught her name but she seemed pretty decent, if a little condescending of him because of his age. Luckily they had believed that he was sixteen, which was another bonus of his deal with Loki. If he had actually said he was thirteen they definitely wouldn't have let him anywhere the scene. To be honest he didn't exactly want to see the body, but he had seen enough deceased people to not be phased by another. What he really wanted was to be able to observe Sherlock to help make a decision as to whether he would feel comfortable leaving the man with vital information.

Currently the genius was practically nose to nose with the victim, presumably inspecting him for clues. Mateo was however much more interested with the rest of the scene.

The body of the man, who was probably in his late thirties, had been carefully lain out on his back with his arms and legs spread like Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. Although there was no obvious cause of death Mateo had to wonder if exsanguination had been the ultimate cause, even if there wasn't a massive pool of blood. Instead, concentric circles filled with intricate symbols had been drawn up to a metre away from the body.

"Whoever did this wasn't mad," Mateo observed.

"They killed a man and painted a collage with his blood," Donovan countered. "He seems pretty insane."

"Well there is certainly some kind of mental problem, but we aren't talking about your average nutjob," Mateo clarified. "The murder was neat, careful, probably meticulously planned. And then the person was incredibly careful with making sure the blood didn't ruin his artwork."

"He's right, although he missed a lot of points," Sherlock's voice stopped Donovan from continuing to argue.

"What, that the symbols could be Somalian? Although whoever wrote them made some errors so either they aren't very intelligent or they are trying to pin the blame on someone else," Mateo replied. "Anything else?"

"How do _you_ know they are Somalian?" Sherlock sounded almost insulted that someone else knew the answers.

"I spent some time in Kenya with some refugees," he shrugged.

"So someone reasonably well educated did this… For what purpose?" Lestrade asked.

"Revenge? A power play?" Mateo suggested. "It was planned, so someone had a damn good reason to do this in their eyes. If we know who the victim is then we might be able to know more about why he was killed."

"He's local, living within twelve miles of this cemetery and intimately knew the area. He was attending one of the universities in London, probably Imperial College, likely studying something to do with space engineering. I'd suggest you circulate a picture of him to all the universities and find out his name and what he was working on that got him murdered," Sherlock summarised.

"Donovan?" Lestrade said.

The woman nodded, seemingly still a bit too miffed to speak evenly, and strode off to do what Sherlock had suggested.

"So how long should it take you to get an answer?" Mateo asked Lestrade.

"Depends on the colleges, and how quickly they respond to us. Seeing as these places have tens of thousands of students enrolled at each of them it won't be an immediate result. It'll take them time to run through the list of students with their pictures until they find the right one. We'll have to give it till the end of the week to get all the results back probably," Lestrade shrugged.

"Is there no other way of speeding it up? Mateo asked.

"Well We'll run his fingerprints through the system, and check the missing persons list, but if he's not got any close family or friends we might have to rely on the universities," the man shrugged.

"In that case I suppose we better leave you to it," the teen turned to go. "Sherlock?"

However the genius had somehow slipped off whilst the pair had been talking. The assembled police seemed just as unaware of the fact as Mateo had been. Lestrade looked around wildly and sighed loudly when he too determined that Sherlock had gone.

"John warned me he would do this, although I had hoped his talk with Sherlock would stop it," Mateo rolled his eyes.

"I thought Sherlock was being well behaved," Lestrade replied.

"Yeah John gave him a list of dos and don'ts before we left. Don't abandon me was one of them," huffed Mateo.

"Come on, we'll get you a taxi," Lestrade offered.

"Thanks," Mateo was surprised by the man's kind nature. John had explained their relationship with the detective and quite often the man had come across as short tempered. Apparently he had done something good and the man liked him more than Sherlock. But considering the circumstances that probably wasn't hard to be more likeable than his 'cousin'.

The taxi ride back to the flat was quiet, although the driver did try to make conversation. Mateo obliged and they had an awkward conversation about what Mateo was doing and why he wasn't in school. He managed to carefully dodge around that topic by manipulating the conversation back to safer quintessentially British topics. Half an hour of talking about the weather and football later and Mateo was glad to be standing outside 221B Baker Street again.

He felt a little guilty as he loudly rapped the door knocker to get Mrs Hudson's attention, as it was approaching late afternoon and the woman probably had stuff to do. However Mateo needn't have worried as the woman promptly answered the door. He could only sheepishly smile as the kind hearted landlady opened the door and proclaimed him to be a drowned rat. She soon had him bundled in a huge fluffy towel with a mug of hot sweet tea, and sat at her kitchen table. It was an odd experience to be mothered by someone he had only met briefly hours before, but Mateo indulged the woman. They actually had quite a good conversation about what she had used to do for a living before she retired and rented rooms to Sherlock and John. The vague tale about her criminal husband had Mateo really intrigued. However after an hour of chatting he knew he needed to get on.

It took a promise of coming back for another chat for Mateo to be able to get out of Mrs Hudson's kitchen and up to his temporary room. He had yet to master wandlessly drying his clothes so he quickly changed into fresh clothes and grabbed his cloak. He willed himself to remain unobserved and carefully slipped out onto the streets and strode off.

With no way of telling when Sherlock would be back Mateo decided to focus on sorting out something he had been avoiding for the last couple of weeks that he had been back. He had been missing for a year and had learnt of how that had almost destroyed his dad and godfather. Mateo dreaded to think how his friends may have reacted to not knowing if he was dead or alive. Seeing as he had been so busy with sorting out his own life and trying to not worry about his father, he really hadn't spared a thought for those at Hogwarts. Hermione at least was going to kill him.

Term was still ongoing, as evident by the few teens on the streets during the early afternoon, so he couldn't even ring Hermione or Kevin to let them know he was back in normal life. Sending an owl was a little too impersonal for such an announcement. He had to let them know he was still alive, and he had to make sure he was going to be allowed to return to study next year.

Hopefully he would be able to kill two or three birds with one stone by taking a quick trip back to Scotland.

Luckily Diagon Alley was quite close to Baker Street so it didn't take too long for Mateo to trot through the rainy streets to the pub. As soon as he reached the safety of the blackened door he stopped thinking about be unnoticed and stepped into the dimly lit room beyond.

There was the normal group of magical people who never seemed to leave the bar. A few more respectable men sat at a table in the middle, possibly having drinks after a meeting. Mateo was the youngest there by at least twenty years and immediately found himself being stared at by at least five curious people.

"Evening there, how can I help?" Tom said curiously.

"Hey, could you direct me to somewhere I could buy Floo powder?" Mateo asked.

"Well you can get some in a couple of shops, but if you only plan to make a quick trip I can sell you a couple of pinches," offered the barkeep.

"That would work great if I can buy some from you, I just need to get to Hogwarts and back," Mateo hadn't really wanted to explain where he was going, but someone would likely hear anyway when he stepped into the Floo, and this way saved time.

"I charge three sickles per pinch," explained the man. As he spoke he walked around the bar and headed to the fireplace, withdrawing a pouch from his pocket as he went.

Mateo hadn't a clue how much the powder normally cost, having never actually used the method of travel before. So he just nodded and rummaged in his pocket for his money. He pulled out a galleon first, and seeing as he couldn't be bothered to hunt for the right change he gave the coin to the man. "Can there be some food waiting for me when I get back? I'll be about an hour I think."

"Sure thing," Tom at least refrained from asking any more questions and turned back to his bar. "Oh, you should aim for the Three Broomsticks, all the fireplaces in Hogwarts will be warded from outside access so Hogsmeade will be as close as you can get."

Mateo nodded his thanks and stepped up to the fireplace and took a deep breath. He hadn't done this before and was slightly worried about what it would feel like. But before he could chicken out he flung the powder out and stepped into the flames with a shout of "The Three Broomsticks!"


	52. Chapter 52 - Reconnecting

**A/N: Don't panic guys, I haven't died! And with my family that's quite a success! Sorry that's a little dark... anyway... I've had a mad couple of months since I last updated which is what has kept me from updating. I got so thoroughly sick of my old job that I started hunting around for a new one, and stumbled across a falconry apprenticeship. And I got it! So six weeks ago I handed my notice in, had to endure the two weeks of being with workmates that I didn't care about, and have spent a month in my new job.**

 **And so far it is amazing! I'm starting to be trusted by most of the birds (there's a common buzzard that seems to be schizophrenic and alternates loving/hating me), I'm in charge of the meerkats and ferrets, and reptiles too. Got to help on an offsite demonstration at an event too this week. So it's all go go go, which means I only have about two hours at home each night. Factor in needing to eat and wash that cuts any play time down to an hour a night.**

 **So I will try to update the story as much as possible as often as possible, but future chapters may be a bit sporadic. I am so sorry for the delay, and thank you for sticking with me!**

 **EDIT: Sorry, shows how long I've been out of this story that the start of this chapter has a massive mistake in it! I've rewritten this series of chapters about 4 different times, and the old version is how it was running before the last change. That's now fixed to the new version.**

* * *

 **Chapter Fifty Two – Reconnecting**

Mateo knew he was definitely going to stick to broomsticks as he picked himself up off the floor. Portkey and floo travel were definitely not for him, and he wasn't going to give them a chance to grow on him if he could help it.

"Are you alright there deary?" a kind sounding voice called over to him.

"Yeah I'm good, first time by floo is all," Mateo replied as he dusted himself off.

"Shouldn't you be at the school?" the person asked again, and Mateo guessed that the woman behind the bar was the owner, and likely to be just as good at gathering gossip as Tom was.

"My father was ill so I've been at home taking care of him. I need to go and talk to Professor Dumbledore about continuing my studies next year," Mateo explained. "Which way is it to the castle?"

"Out the door and turn right up the hill till you reach the gates. I should really owl a teacher to escort you."

"No need to bother them, Professor Flitwick is going to be waiting for me at the gates," Mateo lied as he flashed a winning smile. "I'll see you later."

And before there could be any more awkward questions he hurried from the door and up the road.

It had been close to seven by the time he had gotten back to Baker Street from the crime scene, so in Hogwarts that meant that dinner was likely winding down by now. Mateo almost wished he could stay and fill up on the amazing array of food but he had work to do, so he quit daydreaming and strode onwards.

Getting through the gates proved to only be a minor difficulty, as they wouldn't open for the youth. However it didn't take him long to realise that a rat could walk straight through the wards without hindrance.

Trying to figure out where Flitwick might be at that moment was a bit of a puzzle for Mateo, and he spent a good ten minutes trying to figure out where to go. It wasn't late at all so the professor could be overseeing detentions, or even in the common room helping with homework. Or, as it was Friday, he could even still be in the Great Hall having a late lazy dinner. And even if he wasn't there he could be in the staff room.

With too many placed to rule out Mateo decided to take a more proactive approach to finding his professor and stayed in his animal form. Traversing the huge lawns on four tiny paws took longer than he would have liked, and luckily none of the hundreds of owls decided to hunt across that lawn that evening. Soon the small rat was trundling up the tall stone steps and under the shut doors into a firelit hallway.

Its little black nose barely peeped around the now ginormous wooden doors into a room of many long tables as the rat tried to stay unobserved. There were few people there to see it poke around the doorframe. Even then it didn't hang around long, and soon the brown creature was off scurrying up the many stairs again.

Eventually someone would have seen a brown rat trundling down the long corridor towards one specific door. Its pace had slowed, probably from exhaustion, but an almost determined expression was set onto its features. The characteristic wooden doors of the building gave the rodent easy passage into every room, although it was very hesitant and slow in its passage under the door.

When it saw the occupants of the room the rat almost squeaked with joy, but it kept silent in favour of creeping further into the room. The scents of various food stuffs wafted through the air to the delicate nose of the false rodent, mixed with the scents of the humans.

For Mateo it was a bizarre experience, he had never really consciously noted the smell of each teacher, apart from the odd aroma that wafted around Quirrell years ago. Now that he was sensing everything with enhanced clarity he realised just how distinctive and identifiable everyone was, even by their scent.

Professor Sprout was sitting closest to the door, and unsurprisingly she smelled mostly of mud and compost. But underneath that there was a hint of mint shampoo and blood from numerous scratches on her hands.

Snape was lurking in a corner, his nose in a potions journal and his attention obviously not on the rest of the room. His scent was a mixture of various plants and ingredients, underlined with hints of smoke and damp stone.

Flitwick was chatting with McGonagall, and Mateo guessed that they were the source of the smell of ink, parchment, and wood. The woman also smelled of tea and sugary biscuits, whilst the part goblin had an odd addition of incense. Mateo was puzzled by that, but guessed it might have been something linked to his heritage. Although he would normally like to find out, he was more interested in something else.

There was a new teacher sitting and chatting with Professor Sprout. It didn't take Mateo long to guess that he was the defence teacher, but his scent intrigued the student disguised as a rat. From what he could gather the man must have some odd canine pet, as the clothes he wore gave off the scent of fur, whilst there was an almost undetectable scent of raw meat.

Being a rat left Mateo at a complete dead end on visually inspecting the man, as his eyesight was terrible. It probably was not as bad as if he was a proper rat, but still it was as bad as when he had not worn glasses as a small child. As it was he had been relying on sound and scent so far.

And this lack of vision really became a problem when he suddenly found himself frozen in place completely at random. The cause became apparent once the humans in the room started talking.

"What was that for?" the herbology teacher asked in confusion, probably from having seen her companion cast the spell.

"Sorry Pomona but I just spotted a rat and had an idea for my sixth year class," the unfamiliar voice replied. "Excuse me, I better go put it in a cage."

"I can transfigure you one," Minerva offered helpfully.

"Thank you," Remus replied and soon Mateo found himself sitting in a cage.

Once the door had been slid shut Mateo found himself able to move again. Now that he was much closer than before Mateo was able to study the man who had caught him. The smell of dog and raw meat intensified as Mateo shuffled around and looked at the person, and it started to almost make sense.

The man who had trapped him had kind but wild eyes, with large bags under his eyes. Although Mateo thought the man felt about thirty the grey hairs and faint crow's feet made him look much older. The clothes he wore were shabby if clean, as if he wanted to take pride in his appearance but didn't have the money to afford to. And then there were the three prominent scars that ran across his face.

The scars alone made Mateo feel on edge, and it would have made him feel concerned about the man being dangerous. However the air of defeatism that seemed to cling to the man was familiar and reassured him that the man wasn't dangerous. So Mateo ignored the alarming appearance and focussed on the situation, although he didn't think the man would be one to mindlessly torture a rat he wasn't going to risk it. Sure he could teleport away again but he didn't want to raise concerns of a hostile force breaking into one of the safest places in Wizarding Britain.

"I haven't seen many rats around the school, mostly there are only mice," Flitwick said with curiosity, and Mateo was glad to hear the light tapping of the speaker's feet as he walked forward.

Carefully Mateo shuffled around in his quite small cage and looked at Flitwick. Seeing as the new teacher was still seated the not-rat was on a level with the charms teacher, which was useful. Mateo stared at Flitwick's face and stared intently, and distinctly unlike a rodent, at the human. He ignored the inane chatter that carried on for a few minutes, until Flitwick finally started to realise the odd behaviour.

"I think perhaps we should get the rat settled in your office, it looks a little terrified," Flitwick suggested. "Would you mind me coming along? I'm quite intrigued by your idea that requires a rat."

"Certainly," Mateo wasn't imagining it, the new teacher sounded notably unhappy with the idea.

The two of them then started to move from the Staff Room, and the motion had Mateo hunkering down in the corner of his cage. The sudden surge upwards as the teacher stood, followed by the side to side swaying had him desperately focussing on not throwing up. The sensation was much too close to being at sea, and Mateo had never managed a journey in a boat without being violently ill.

Luckily the staff room wasn't too far from the defence classroom, and Mateo was unbelievably happy to be set down on the front desk. It took a few minutes of deep breathing for his stomach to settle, but once it finally had the boy-rat turned around and tuned into the conversation going on above him.

"-many spells that need a rat," Flitwick was saying.

"Well there might not be any charms that require one," the other man said rather cagily.

"Remus, we both know that that was completely unlike you," Professor Flitwick said calmly, despite the implied insult to his knowledge earlier. "Now what is truly going on?"

There was a long pause before anyone spoke again, all the while Mateo fidgeted in his cage and searched for a way out. However he stilled his skittering when the new teacher spoke.

"When I was a student here, you know I was out once a month?" Remus said, mostly rhetorically. "Well it took James, Sirius, and Pettigrew a couple of years to figure out why, then a couple more years to find out how they could help me. They learned to become animagi, and when I was out of the dorm at night they would come with me, keep me company. I couldn't infect them, and they kept me sane on the nights when I normally wouldn't.

"Why is this relevant?" Flitwick asked when it became apparent Remus wasn't just pausing for breath.

"James was a stag, Sirius was a Grim-like dog… And Pettigrew was a rat," as he said the final word Remus held the cage up meaningfully.

"But Peter is dead," the Ravenclaw teacher pointed out.

"No one ever found the body, and I have it on good authority that Pettigrew isn't dead," Remus said.

"How? How do you know that? Sirius Black blew him apart so spectacularly they only ever found a finger," retorted Flitwick.

"Black contacted me," the new teacher blurted out in a rush.

"You've been in contact with a wanted fugitive, a convicted Death Eater, the only person to have escaped Azkaban and who still remains at large?" Professor Flitwick's voice was coloured with a mixture of shock and anger.

"He was framed by Pettigrew, who has been hiding this entire time in his animagus form. Black saw him in a photo in the _Daily Prophet_ and figured it out so he broke out of Azkaban. If he could catch the rat he would be proven to be innocent of all charges."

"He would still be guilty of being a Death Eater," Flitwick stated again.

"Pettigrew was the one who betrayed Lily and James to his master, not Sirius. If Sirius caught the traitor, the Dark Mark on his arm would be the proof he needs to walk free once more," Remus retorted passionately.

"And you think this rat is Pettigrew?" Flitwick's voice had taken on a harder edge, but whether it was because of his disbelief or because of anger Mateo couldn't tell.

"It bears a remarkable similarity, and we can test it," Mateo didn't like the sound of that.

"Would you like assistance with this then?" Flitwick offered as he drew his wand.

"Two will make it easier," Remus accepted the offer.

With no warning the cage suddenly vanished and Mateo found himself falling to the ground. He managed to twist himself in the air so that he would land on his feet, but he didn't make it that far.

As soon as he was hit by a bolt of magic Mateo felt like his body was being squashed and stretched alternatively. At the same time he knew he was growing once more, and he hit the floor on his true hands and knees.

The room was silent as he knelt there gasping for breath as he tried to get over the forced change. Although his first attempt at self-transformation had been exhausting this change felt like he had run a marathon and then immediately gone ten rounds with a professional boxer.

Eventually he trusted his legs to support his weight, so Mateo staggered to his feet and faced the two adults.

"Hello Professor Flitwick," he said with a lopsided grin.

"Mateo?" the part goblin said in a faint voice.

"I was hoping I would bump into you, I needed to have a word about returning to school next year," Mateo decided to continue as if nothing was amiss.

"He's the missing student everyone's been worried about?" Remus asked.

"Professor Remus Lupin, meet Mateo Banner. In the top three of his year, son of a very prominent physicist who has also done a disappearing act," Flitwick introduced them.

"It's a family trait," Mateo said to cover his unease at the mention of his father.

"How did you learn to be an animagus?" Was Remus' first question.

"And how did you change so much in such a short time?" Flitwick added.

"It's a long and complicated story, one that I haven't even fully told to my family, so I hope you can forgive me for not telling you everything. But the abridged version is I received an offer to study under a very knowledgeable person, and it was an offer I couldn't refuse. I only intended to stay for the summer but I got distracted and only returned home about two weeks ago. My tutor taught me many things, one of which was how to be an animagus. But the sudden increase in magical power caused some unexpected side effects, like an increased growth spurt," Mateo breezed through quickly.

"And you ended up being a rat," Professor Lupin sounded disappointed, having latched onto the only part of the story that he really cared about. Although he was a professor he had never met this student, and so hadn't got as much of a vested interested as Flitwick had.

"Doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to rat my friends out," Mateo defended himself quickly. "It could be because I am sneaky, or perhaps smart… Rats have also been observed to save others of their species from drowning."

"You never can win an argument against a Ravenclaw," Remus said wryly, and his half smile twisted the scars on his face to even more disconcerting shapes.

"How extensively did my family broadcast my disappearance?" Mateo asked, turning the conversation in a direction he wanted, rather than mindless chatter.

"There was surprisingly little media coverage, from the muggle perspective you regularly disappeared off to private school. It helped that your father and Tony disappeared pretty much for the entire summer too, so it looked like you all were on holiday or something. Your absence was noted once term started again, but luckily your friends kept your disappearance quiet and it was decided that your father decided to remove you from the school due to the events of last year. If you do wish to return next year then it wouldn't be too unexpected," his Head of House explained.

"There isn't anything keeping me at home now, unless Dad reappears soon. I guess Tony kept you informed about all that?" Mateo asked and was glad to see his head of house nod. He sighed as he felt the familiar pang of guilt and sadness but he quickly carried on. "Transferring to a magical school in America would just be likely to gain me more attention, at least people are used to me here now. I can handle the stares of everyone here better than the constant barrage of questions American students are likely to have."

"I'm afraid that part of the process for reacceptance of a student requires the approval of the Headmaster," Flitwick revealed.

"Why is that a problem?" Remus broke into their conversation.

"I am not his biggest fan," Mateo said shortly. "But I think I can survive a meeting with him. If the options are sitting at home waiting for news, or a half an hour chat with the Headmaster I think you know what I'd choose."

"Then we should get this over with sooner rather than later," Flitwick said and he headed towards the door, however he stopped before he got to it. "Perhaps it would be best if you transformed again, that way you can travel without being harassed by other students."

"It was good to meet you professor," Mateo said before they left, and then added as an afterthought. "You know, when I realised I was a rat my first thought was that I looked a lot like Scabbers. He's Ron Weasley's pet rat who's been in their family for years."

Professor Lupin didn't say anything to that, although before he started to change Mateo noted that the man had a very pensive look on his face. Mateo nodded his head to signal to Flitwick that he was ready to leave, before shrinking until he was the small raggedy rat once more. He was pleasantly surprised when Flitwick gently picked him up and tucked him in a large pocket sewn into his robe.

He daren't risk poking his head out of the pocket so Mateo stayed still and turned his attention to what was in the pocket with him. His nose identified the smell of an apple having been in there recently, and at the moment there was a number of scraps of parchment. For some odd reason Mateo had the almost overwhelming urge to chew on them as he waited. He shook his rodent head in bemusement and took the opportunity to rest. Teleporting from America and then changing twice in short order had left him ready to curl up and sleep for a day.

All too soon Flitwick was putting him on the floor once more and he changed back to a human. With his eyesight back to normal he could see that thy were on a secluded spiral staircase, in front of an ornate door that was out of place with most other doors in the school.

"Good evening Albus, I was wondering if you had some spare time for a rather delicate matter?" Flitwick said as he stuck his head around the door.

"Certainly Filius, what can I help you with?" Albus' grandfatherly voice floated out to Mateo.

"Me, apparently," Mateo interrupted and strode into the room.

"Mateo! I am so glad to see you are safe once more," Albus said joyfully.

"Thank you Professor Flitwick, I think I can take it from here," Mateo said, giving Flitwick a chance to leave. Although he already knew everything going on, Mateo was hoping that they could keep that pretence up with Albus for a while longer. "I'll probably head home straight after this, so I will see you at the start of the autumn term."

"Travel safe young Mateo," Flitwick shot him a warm smile before closing the door behind him.

Once the charms teacher had left Mateo turned to Albus and stood straight. "Apparently I need to have a _chat_ with you before I can be accepted back for the next academic year."

"Indeed, I am very interested in where you have been this last year," Although Albus' tone was still light, Mateo felt the temperature of the room drop, and they both regarded each other with suspicious eyes.

"Like I have told everyone before, I was training with a friend who would like to keep his anonymity. I've returned for my mainstream education, and to help you with your potential problem with a megalomaniac," Mateo stated.

"I'm afraid I am going to need more information than that, for the safety of your classmates, you understand," Albus insisted.

"Well I'm afraid you will not hear any more from me," Mateo said shortly. "You have three options open to you: you accept my explanation and let me back into the school, you ban me from returning on the grounds of keeping the other students safe and I _might_ help you with Voldemort, or you force the information from my head and I _definitely_ leave and will never return to England."

The two remained in tense silence for a few minutes, and while Mateo wanted to glare challengingly into the Headmaster's eyes he refrained from doing so. The rudimentary methods Loki had taught him hadn't created mental barriers strong enough to challenge the man. That was something he still had to work on, Mateo noted, and fast. So he settled for a hard stare at the centre of the headmaster's forehead.

Eventually Albus sighed and rubbed the exact spot where the student had been staring at in apparent defeat. Mateo kept his stubborn stance, but ended up raising an eyebrow at Albus' words. "Where did I go so wrong with you, Harry?"

"Shall I list everything? First off you left me on a doorstep with relatives that hated my guts, then despite the abuse you never came to save me. There were plenty of other people who would have taken me in, and yet you stuck me with people who would have quite happily killed me without too much hesitation. Then after that you kept information from me, and probably still continue to do so. And to top it all off you expect me to fight your battles for you just because of the mumbled words of some crazy person?" Mateo stopped to take a deep breath.

Before he could carry on ranting Albus cut in. "You should hold prophecies in higher regard, whilst they can be ambiguous they are often proven true. Sight is one aspect of magic which is still woefully under-researched."

"Fine, I'm the only one who can kill Voldemort, but why was it necessary to leave me in a hellish household? Wouldn't it have been more logical to have put me with a magical family from the start and have me trained as soon as I could read?" Mateo had to force his voice to remain level as all his emotions boiled just under his skin.

The topic they were on was still a very difficult one for him, and with the sudden loss of his adoptive father made his old insecurities rise to the front of his mind. When he had his anger and fear under control again Mateo spoke again. In a small, hurt voice he asked; "What did I ever do to you to make you hate me enough to put me with the Dursleys?"

"You are powerful, if you had been introduced to magic too early without the correct upbringing we could have faced having another Voldemort on our hands. If you had come to Hogwarts and found acceptance from your fellows then you were more likely to fight for us rather than against us. It was for the greater good that of all of us. With the prophecy dictating that only you can defeat Voldemort I couldn't risk you being influenced by the darker wizards in society and joining him."

"You are very lucky that Bruce adopted me, or you could very easily have had two Dark Lords to deal with. If I hadn't run away I probably could have ended up very easily being manipulated into hating muggles and believing Voldemort's propaganda."

Mateo sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. The situation was going about as well as he had expected, but he couldn't afford to alienate Albus further. He had managed to get his emotions under control, and knowing for certain that Albus' actions were honourable but misguided made the situation easier to bear. It didn't solve the matter of Mateo disliking the man who had almost ruined his life, but at least he knew the truth of Dumbledore's actions. That just left them with trying to figure out how to go forward from there.

Seeing as the man ahead of him was unlikely to apologise for all his mistakes, Mateo would have to be the bigger man and find a mutually beneficial solution.

"Look, I can see you aren't going to apologise for what _you_ felt was the best course of action. I won't chase you for words you'll never utter, so to save time I'm happy to agree to disagree on your handling of my past. For the greater good I am willing to put our past behind us and work together to see Voldemort put down once and for all. You accept that I have been away training and that I am still the same person I was the last time you saw me. You will let me return next year and in the future help me to destroy Voldemort. I do not need you to interfere with my life further, just give me any information necessary to ensure Voldemort dies properly this time. What do you say to this arrangement?"

"I can see you are set in your beliefs, and there is little I can say to change your mind. So I agree, I will leave you to your devices and share information as I come across it. I just hope your decision does not doom us all, my boy," Albus said, obviously still attempting to control the situation by guilt tripping his student.

"Trust me, even you will be surprised by what I will unleash on Voldemort and his followers," Mateo gave a dark grin. "Oh, and on the topic of Death Eaters. Tell me, truthfully, is Snape truly ours? I cannot risk accidentally revealing things in front of him if you cannot completely trust him."

"He is definitely on the side of the Light, he might not appear so but he has to keep up appearances in case he must become a spy once more. He may be branded by Voldemort, but he is as dark as you claim to be," Albus said reproachfully.

"Good," Mateo ignored the jab. "Anything else you want to share?"

"I am still researching how Voldemort survived," the Headmaster shrugged.

"Fair enough," Mateo didn't bother calling out the old man on his lie, he hadn't expected him to adhere to their agreement. "One final thing, I would like to learn Occlumency, would you know of a suitable tutor?"

"Over the next year I am likely to be too busy to offer my own services, but Professor Flitwick will undoubtedly be able to supply you with the necessary texts to start learning. However for practical tuition I would recommend Professor Snape, I can talk to him if you would like?" Professor Dumbledore offered.

"No I'll talk to him, I'd rather an honest reply rather than him doing it out of duty," Mateo said hastily. "I best be getting back, goodbye Headmaster, thank you for agreeing to my return."

Mateo gave a very short boy before turning on his heel and striding from the office. Once back in the main school he quickly headed to the seventh floor and paced in front of a blank section of wall. When the door appeared he conjured three pieces of paper which he wrote on with a pen he dug from his pocket. In short order he had penned three notes and wafted them around a bit to dry the ink before tapping them with his wand. He didn't actually know the spell or incantation that he should properly use, but a bit of the other magic Loki had given him and some false wandwork seemed to do the trick. Not for the first time did Mateo decide that over the next year he would focus on mortal magic, only using Loki's more instinctive style when absolutely necessary.

With three origami swallows nestled in his palm he flicked his wand again and they took off together. Although they headed off in the same direction Mateo knew that at some point one would split from the others and head to a completely different part of the castle.

Whilst he waited Mateo walked into the room and took a seat on the deep leather sofa he had taken a liking to at their last meeting. Not long after his letters flitted away the huge wooden door swung open and two figures hurried into the room. Mateo didn't have much time to process the sudden arrival before one of the figures leapt at him and pulled him into a tight hug.

"Woah, hello Hermione," Mateo smiled and shuffled a bit to get more comfortable. "Hello to you too Kevin."

"Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea how worried sick we were that you had been murdered, or kidnapped, or were being held ransom?" Hermione said shrilly.

"That's something we'd all like to know mate," Kevin reiterated as he took a seat opposite Mateo.

"Well pull up a pew and I'll tell you, but only once the others are here too," Mateo said gently.

They luckily didn't have to wait long, as Mateo was sure Hermione would burst from having to refrain from asking a million questions. Three minutes after Hermione's explosive entrance the door opened once more to admit three calmer figures.

"Alright Mateo, long time no see," Fred winked.

"Did you miss us or something?" George finished.

"It's good to see you," Neville's smile made Mateo feel both incredibly happy and incredibly guilty at the same time.

"So, where have you been this last year?" Hermione blurted out.

"I can't tell you everything, but I'll tell you as much as I can," Mateo promised as he sat upright in preparation of the long tale.

"Why not, we are your closest friends," Hermione said indignantly as she let go of him. "We won't tell a soul."

"Hermione I haven't even told Tony everything, and he's my guardian at the moment," Mateo sighed.

Thankfully that appeased the quintet and they fell into an expectant silence. Mateo was thankful as it gave him a few vital moments to organise his thoughts before he started speaking. He told them of his meeting with Loki, his offer and them going to his hideout. He detailed the god's lessons and the improvements in his magical skill.

However he didn't say anything about their tackling the Horcrux, or the blood transfusion. He felt bad about it but he deliberately downplayed exactly what he could do as well, and by the time he had finished his friends were under the impression he was now just able to do a limited amount of wandless magic.

"So you can cast light and fire from your hands?" Hermione asked.

"Yep, I'm pretty sure I would be invaluable in the winter months in the north pole," Mateo laughed. "Now, now you know I am still alive and what I've been up to, I better get back."

"Has Tony got the jet waiting for you?" Kevin asked.

"No I'm staying with a friend in London, I have a portkey waiting," Mateo lied.

"Oh, well we'll see you in four months then," Kevin obviously wanted to see the fabled Iron Man once more.

"Don't worry I'll keep in contact with you this time," Mateo promised. "Maybe I can come visit you guys?"

"We have plenty of space at our house, if you are alright with sleeping in a tent?" the twins offered.

"None of you guys want to be over in America at the moment," Mateo warned them, and he was grateful when no one pushed for answers. "So a visit to the Weasley's sounds perfect. If you guys can organise between you when is best, I'll make my schedule work."

"We'll see you in a few weeks then," Hermione hugged him one last time before they all filed out of the room together.

Whilst the five of them headed back to their common rooms Mateo deliberately walked in a different direction. As soon as he was alone once more he changed to the rat again and scurried down the corridors to the front doors. This time, with night fully set, he didn't risk encountering an owl and changed back to his human form before sprinting away from the castle to the gates. Apparently the wards only dissuaded people from entering as Mateo easily opened the gate to exit the grounds.

Rosmerta didn't seem half as willing as Tom had been to sell him floo powder, but Mateo managed to smile and charm a small pinch of the black powder out of the lady's supplies. All too soon he was being sucked away again to London. The second trip wasn't any better than the first, and neither was Mateo's landing.


	53. Chapter 53 - Here, There, and Everywhere

**A/N: Hello again! Alright, insert the usual obligatory apology here, work is hard! I've finally started some of the academic work for a course I'm on as part of this job and that means I actually have to do research and stuff. None of it is too hard, but you try googling codes of practices followed in zoos and you find a quick answer!**

 **And also I am currently only typing with six fingers and one thumb, one of the owls wasn't happy with me today so I have plasters covering a few deep scratches on my right hand and I can't move some of my joints to type! My right pinkie is useful for pressing backspace and the arrow keys though! Apart from the one devil bird work is going quite well, I just need to keep working on gaining their trust and I will be able to do demonstrations!**

 **I have to admit, these last few chapters are rather random and seem to only serve the purpose of fulfilling my own desire to do a three way cross over. I swear there is a point to all this, it might just take us ten chapters to see it (don't worry, Sherlock et al are going away again much sooner than that!)**

 **Thanks to everyone who puts up with my ramblings, and my sporadic posting. You all rock!**

* * *

 **Chapter Fifty Three – Here, There, and Everywhere**

All the next day Mateo felt like he would quite happily be able to curl up in a ball and sleep until sundown. Although he hadn't done anything half as exerting as a Quidditch match, all the running around yesterday had put a strain on his body. Sleeping in may have helped the situation but he had never learnt to stay in bed much beyond seven in the morning, so Mateo resigned himself to a day of feeling fuzzy headed.

Thankfully he was able to hide his exhaustion mostly, the rest he blamed on jetlag. And because they were waiting for any result from the post-mortem, the criminal database, or a university, Mateo was at a loose end for the day. He was surprised at how easily manipulated Sherlock could be, and after a few hours of complete silence he managed to wrangle a violin lesson off of the man.

Mateo had barely spent more than five hours on his violin at home so he was leagues behind Sherlock's level of skill. However he was a surprisingly good tutor, and Mateo found himself making impressive progress in just the day of lessons.

Sunday found them again without any new information. By that point Sherlock had gotten bored with the lack of progress. So Mateo found himself being shoved into a coat and out the front door.

"Nowhere is going to be open, and we can hardly break in just to look at some paperwork," Mateo protested as Sherlock slammed the front door behind them.

"We aren't going to be breaking in," Sherlock stated as he set off at a fast pace down the street.

"Then what are we going to do?" Mateo asked as he hurried to catch up.

He had stopped his growth spurt at five foot nine, so he was still a good three inches shorter than Sherlock. However it wasn't too much of a hardship on him as he managed to keep up relatively easily. Which was useful as he managed to jump into the taxi right behind Sherlock, instead of being forced to run before Sherlock left without him. Mateo had no clue as to what they were going to do, so he tried to relax in the cab and waited for Sherlock to reveal any details about where they were going.

He didn't.

But luckily their journey was half an hour long, and then Sherlock had them walking for a little longer. They had left the main streets and headed into the side streets that were less busy. Even then they started ducking in and out of alleys as Sherlock seemed to be hunting for something.

Finally they stopped and Sherlock slowed down. It took Mateo a few seconds to see what Sherlock had been searching for, but when he noticed her he almost stopped.

"Wassup Sherlock?" the woman said in a rough voice.

"I need your eyes Deuce," Sherlock said without preamble.

"Who's the mark?" the scruffily dressed woman stood and stretched for a long time.

"You won't find him now, unless you break into St Barts. However people in the network may have seen him around in the last few weeks," Sherlock clarified.

He then dug into his pocket and pulled out a photo.

"Max Wilkins, ex-student of Imperial College London and most recent case of mine. He was found dead in a fake blood ritual. We need to find out what extracurricular activities he may have been involved in," Sherlock passed the paper to Deuce.

"Any suspicions?" she asked as she wiped her grubby blonde fringe out of her eyes to better see the photo.

"Not yet," Sherlock said shortly as he dug around in his pockets. He then pulled out a handful of notes and passed them to the short blonde without batting an eyelid.

"I'll get on it," Deuce said without hesitation. To back up her words she immediately rolled up the mat she had been sitting on and shoved it into a rucksack before walking off.

"A homeless network?" Mateo asked.

"Eyes and ears everywhere, they are overlooked so often in society that they are the perfect spies," Sherlock informed him. "I have arrangements with a score or so of them, if they ever hear anything interesting they let me know or I can hire them to help me."

"So you can be in three places at once," Mateo said approvingly.

"Indeed," Sherlock looked at him with a faint smile. "Are you hungry? I know of a café nearby we can wait in for an hour whilst Deuce does some initial digging."

The café turned out to be the typical sticky-table institute that attracted flocks of students. With cheap food in great quantities Mateo could see why, and he gratefully dug into his mound of cooked breakfast as they waited. Sherlock didn't order anything, although Mateo nudged a pint glass of water into his hands. The man seemed bemused by the act but accepted the drink, and occasionally sipped from it.

Neither of them attempted to break the silence between them, but Mateo didn't feel any pressure to do so. Although the man sitting across from him was quite often avoided by his peers Mateo felt no such compulsion. Perhaps it was because of the company he had kept in the past but Sherlock's oddities were just what made up the man, and Mateo took them in his stride. Being forgotten didn't feel like a personal insult, neither did the lack of conversation.

An hour later, and a plate of food and a pint of coffee later for Mateo, Sherlock's head suddenly twitched. It wasn't much but it caught Mateo's eye and he immediately pulled his thoughts from his father and onto the genius. Because he had seen the early warning sign Mateo wasn't left floundering at the table when Sherlock suddenly shot off.

The teen quickly twirled out of his chair and hared after the man, who had run straight across the busy road. Although Sherlock had luckily missed being run over by a bus Mateo wasn't going to risk it, so he waited for a gap in the traffic. By the time he had crossed Sherlock had disappeared down an alleyway. Mateo followed, and had to skid to a halt when he rounded the corner and almost slammed into his target.

Neither he nor Deuce had waited for Mateo to appear and were already deep in conversation about Sherlock's target. Banner barely had time to steady himself before Sherlock was off again, this time at a slower pace.

"Where are we off to this time?" Mateo asked as he marched after Sherlock.

"Home," came the short reply.

"Home? What about Deuce and her information?" Mateo asked in surprise.

"She could confirm that Max was attending the college. We know where he lived and where he studied, but we cannot go any further without access to the university. We could force our way in, but if our man was involved in something that caught the eye of the government then we would be stopped immediately. I _could_ talk to my darling brother, but waiting for Lestrade to catch up will be an easier route to take," Sherlock shot off with barely a pause.

As Mateo raced after the detective, who was currently trotting in the general direction of Baker Street, he decided that he was glad he had maintained a decent level of fitness. He didn't think that Sherlock would ever hit the gym, but the wiry man seemed to naturally be able to keep fit with his fast paced lifestyle. The thought of Ron trying to keep up with Sherlock instead of him had Mateo smiling to himself.

The small progress they had made from correctly identifying the college Max had attended ended up putting Sherlock in a good mood. With most people having the day off the pair couldn't pursue their work any further, but Mateo at least enjoyed their evening watching crime drama and trying to guess who did it first.

Monday morning found the pair outside the doors to Scotland Yard before they were even unlocked for the public. As soon as the security guard had actually unlocked them Sherlock was striding through and towards the lift, with Mateo hot on his heels.

"Imperial College, like I said," Sherlock announced.

"Morning to you too," grumbled the inspector as he cradled his coffee mug.

"Yes yes," Sherlock waved his hand as if to bat away the customary morning pleasantries. "Max Wilkins was attending Imperial College, have we had any communication from them?"

"It's too early for this…" Mateo heard the grey-haired man mutter under his breath as he booted up his computer.

"The post mortem would probably be back by now as well shouldn't it?" Mateo asked hesitantly. "How about I check for emails whilst you go and find out what they found out?"

With the promise of even more information they barely had time to blink before all that was left of Sherlock in the room was his coat tails flicking around the doorframe.

"Can I hire you full time to work crowd control with Sherlock?" Lestrade almost begged as he gestured for the teen to take the desk.

"I would love to but I have school to go back to in September, but I can try to help for the rest of the time I'm here," said Mateo as he slid into the offered seat.

"How long is that for?" Mateo almost winced at how hopeful the man sounded. It wasn't hard to guess the man had had a rough weekend and didn't need Sherlock making his Monday any worse.

"Perhaps a month? Things are rough at my guardian's house at the moment so I'm getting some experience of the real world until school starts again," Mateo explained vaguely.

"Well if Sherlock gets too much let me know, there's a number of places I know of where you could crash for a while," Lestrade offered.

"Thanks, but John has already made the same offer," Mateo smiled, but then his attention was caught by the computer and the conversation died off.

After half an hour of trawling through emails from '. ' email addresses Mateo was starting to hate educated people. Most of the emails had a good paragraph of words when really a one sentence reply would have sufficed. But finally there was only one email left and Mateo couldn't help but feel relieved when he opened it.

"Sherlock was right," he said out loud. However when he looked up he realised he was alone, and had no idea how long he had been like that.

The offices outside of the windows were much busier than when Sherlock and he had arrived, and Lestrade was not easily visible amongst the bustling detectives. So Mateo shrugged and printed off the email and left it open. He had no idea how he should reply to the questions posed by the university and instead left it open for Lestrade to deal with.

Mateo had just finished returning the desk to exactly how it was before he sat down when the man he had been looking for returned, carrying two cups this time.

"It's nowhere near a £5 cappuccino, but it has enough caffeine in it to have you doing laps of the ceiling after your fourth cup," Lestrade shrugged and offered the teen one of the cups.

"And how many are you on already?" he asked with a grin and a nod of the head in thanks.

"This is my third, I think…" the inspector shrugged as he blew on his and took a sip.

Mateo followed suit although he really didn't need a caffeine boost. He mulled over the taste and decided that it wasn't the worst coffee he had ever drunk, but it certainly wasn't the best.

"So, any news? Or are we going to have to distract Sherlock again?" asked Lestrade.

"Imperial College has replied with the information we wanted. I wasn't sure what to do so I was literally just coming to find you. They have offered to let you go and search through his files on their servers to see whether any of his work was linked to his murder. They also have contacted their medical centre and have his listed current address if you want to go search his house," Mateo summarised, but gave the man a copy of the email as well.

"I'll send someone to search his house and get any electronic devices to Sherlock. Hopefully the promise of having to hack passwords will keep him occupied enough whilst we pay the college a visit," Lestrade decided as he sent a quick reply to the college.

"We?" Mateo asked.

"Well you were the one who distracted Sherlock the first time, I owe you some kind of reward," Lestrade offered.

"Won't it look a little suspicious having a sixteen year old following you around on a murder investigation?"

"We occasionally have interns shadow us, so just act like a student," the inspector said with a tight smile. He seemed to get an idea and quickly rummaged through a draw before tossing a notepad and pen to Mateo. "Here, make notes and look studious and you'll fit right in."

Mateo felt a tiny bit guilty ditching Sherlock for a trip with the inspector, however as soon as he remembered the same had happened in reverse a few days ago he felt a lot better. Travelling with Lestrade was more interesting too, as the man let him choose the radio station and kept him entertained with his road rage. Mate wasn't at all surprised at that revelation, a man used to order and logic probably would have to have the patience of a saint to deal with the chaotic London traffic. And one thing Mateo definitely could say of the man was that he hadn't got the best control on his anger.

With a quick flash of his badge Lestrade was able to park right in the central car park of the university, something which Mateo thought he took great pleasure in doing.

"The badge has its perks," the man commented upon seeing Mateo's amused look. "And good parking spaces is one of them."

Without much idea about where to head first the pair followed the signs to the main visitor reception, which turned out to be at the edge of the university. Logically it made sense as it was easier for visitors, but Mateo had to hide a smile at the inspectors grumbling about having to waste time backtracking.

A bored and rather unhelpful receptionist dealt with their query and sent them on to another reception in another building, before they were once again directed to another desk in a third building. Half an hour later the two were a bit lost and one of them was starting to lose his temper.

"If this isn't the right place then I swear…" Lestrade muttered as the lift opened and they stepped out into a small hallway space.

Mateo led the way to the office, which was tucked down another small corridor, before Lestrade took control once again.

"Hello and welcome to the School of Computing and Mathematics," the woman at this desk at least seemed more upbeat and cheery than the last two. "How can I help?"

"I'm Inspector Lestrade, here to talk about a student in this school. A Max Wilkins?" Although Mateo knew the man was irate he was at least able to project a cool professional exterior.

"Oh yes, we were told something had happened and that someone might be visiting. Hang on, I'll let Mike Ramsay know. He is Max's tutor and probably the best person to talk to. Would you mind taking a seat whilst I go find him?" the receptionist asked.

She didn't wait for a reply and quickly bustled off down another narrow corridor, leaving Lestrade and Mateo to make themselves comfortable. There wasn't much of a view for the pair to gaze at, as the window to their right look out into a void and the offices across the gap. The other source of natural light was at the other side of the reception and were too far away. So instead Mateo filled his time with reading various promotional posters stuck up about various university events. There were a few advertising masters programmes, and Mateo was quite intrigued by the idea of the robotics masters. A few societies had ratty handmade A4 posters up, such as one proclaiming the next Musical Society performance, or the one for the Assassin's Guild AGM, and even the Lego Society's RAG evening.

After ten minutes the receptionist came back and told them that the tutor would be along once his meeting was over. Half an hour later the pair were starting to get tired of their surroundings.

"This is getting ridiculous," Lestrade muttered and looked like he was ready to stand up and complain.

"Sorry that meeting overran," a man strode into the room at breakneck speed.

Mateo's first thoughts on the man, who he assumed was Mike Ramsay, was that the man looked ill. Despite it being warm enough to just wear a t-shirt outside he was wearing a thick shirt with some kind of thermal t-shirt on underneath. He was also quite pale and with large bags under his eyes. However the small welcoming smile looked genuine and served to cool some tempers in the room.

"No worries," Mateo chuckled quietly as Lestrade blatantly lied.

"We can talk in my office, it's probably the best place. I'm Mike Ramsay by the way," Mike stated.

"Inspector Lestrade, and my intern Matt Smithies," Mateo had to bite back a snort of laughter at how convoluted his fake name was becoming.

"An intern? Is that normal?" Mike asked curiously.

"We don't often take many interns but Matt has showed exceptional talent and a flair for this line of work," replied the inspector.

"I'm along to see how proper procedure works. If it's okay I'll be making notes, but everything will be anonymous," Mateo spoke up, trying to play the eager shadow.

"I wish half of my students were as eager as you," Mike said encouragingly.

By this point they had arrived at a locked door, which Mike was able to open with a swipe of his card. They walked past a number of desks with a few personal items on, suggesting each belonged to different people.

"Our PhD students get their own desk, we Doctors get our own rooms," Mike noticed Mateo's interest.

The office they walked into barely had enough space in it for someone to lie down after the majority of the room had been filled with desks and shelving. Pretty much all of the available space was filled with electrical pieces, from bundles of wires and circuit boards to completed gadgets. Mike slid into his desk with practiced ease whilst Lestrade and Mateo took seats on stools that had been stacked in the corner.

"So I was told this morning that Max Wilkins was killed last week?" Mike started. "It's a shame, he was a genius with electronics and programming."

"What was he studying?" Lestrade asked.

"He had completed his undergraduate studies mostly, and was just studying for his final exams in two weeks. However his dissertation earned him 80% so there was no way he was failing to graduate. He was going to be moving onto a masters in robotics, he had already picked out his masters project despite not even starting the course yet," Mike sighed.

"How often does that happen?" Mateo asked.

"We might be lucky to get one student in the entire department being that organised each year."

"So you know what he was going to work on?" Lestrade asked.

"He was interested in the space programme, in his undergrad dissertation he discussed the current designs of space rovers. He might be working on the similar lines? I haven't really looked at his work yet, he had wanted to have a meeting in September as soon as term started again," Mike shrugged.

"Could he have been working on his project on the university server?" Mateo piped up.

"We have sent people to his house to find if there are any clues there, but if there could be any files here that he accessed then we need to check them," Lestrade explained.

"It is possible, the IT department don't remove graduates from the server until Christmas in case they change their minds and return for further study at a later date. I can give them a call and get access to Max's files?" offered Mike.

"Please," Lestrade nodded. Once Mike was on the phone and engrossed in a conversation with the other person the grey haired man turned to his 'intern'. "Good thinking there."

Mateo shrugged modestly, "I probably was only a second ahead of you."

The two fell silent as they waited for access to the files. In the meantime Mateo gazed around the room and studied some of the journals stacked on the shelves, whilst Lestrade made notes in his notebook in case. Five minutes later Mike finished the call and put down the phone, which attracted the attention of the other two back to the lecturer and his computer.

"Normally I would have to log off and then log into Max's user account. However I got lucky and Mansfield picked up the phone, he's probably the best person in IT. He's copied all of Max's files into my areas so we can try and cross reference anything he's worked on with work from other students. If there was something that caused conflict with another student then we might be able to run his essays through the plagiarism system and flag similarities," Mike explained quickly as he started clicking through documents.

"I only got half of that," Mateo admitted.

"We have to check every project and essay submitted for evidence of it being copied directly from an already published source, or from another student. We can use the same programme to see whether any of Max's work matches anything submitted recently by another student. It's a long shot because nothing would have been sent in since their dissertations which had to be in by May. However if we loosen the parameters so that anything remotely similar is flagged then we could see if any of the other students in Max's cohort were interested in the same topics."

"Oh I get it now, do you think any of the students would resort to murder over an essay?" Mateo sounded sceptical.

"It depends on whether Max was on to something. In their masters they actually have to start developing new ideas, be it theoretical programming or actually trying to develop their own machines or software. If Max had had a revelation that would make space travel or surveying easier then he could have made millions patenting the idea. I wouldn't put it past anyone to murder for that opportunity,"

The three of them sombrely waited for some kind of result. After a while Mateo offered to go on a drink run, and was surprised when the lecturer absentmindedly handed over his ID card to get back into the room.

"It's been a nightmare trying to do anything with these new security cards. Sure the thefts have stopped but half the time the readers malfunction. The nearest café is on the ground floor of Portland Square, it's the three square buildings joined together next door."

Being able to escape and have a better look around the university, even if it was just one more building, perked Mateo up and he immediately set off to buy drinks.

He couldn't help but stop and read every poster and announcement on each board on the way to the café. Something about the place made Mateo feel inspired and he was desperate to be able to go and snoop around the library. It had been a long time since he had thought about what he wanted to do after Hogwarts. Too often he was too concerned about just training and facing Voldemort, but in this place of learning Mateo suddenly realised he would have a life _after_ that. Perhaps he would return to the Muggle world and study for a degree, if he was able to actually get in to university. He made a mental note to see about doing some distance learning courses to get some credible muggle qualifications. However as soon as he thought about asking his dad for help he felt the familiar stab of sadness, so he quickly shook his head and hurried on to the café.

The café was abuzz with many students desperately trying to get the caffeine fix they needed to carry on studying. Mateo shot one student a sympathetic glance, he looked on the verge of crying as he juggled a large file of notes as well as a laptop and his coffee. Mateo himself went practically unnoticed in the crowd of sleep deprived and stressed students, which allayed his worries of being stopped and questioned about being a teen in a university.

His order, once he got to the front of the queue, was quickly processed and he left a tip for the students running the place. In no time at all he was out again and heading towards the lifts and Mike's office.

Navigating the corridors that had at first seemed maze-like was much easier second time around, and Mateo was back at the office relatively quickly. He was surprised to see Lestrade standing looking over Mike's shoulder at something on the large double computer screens.

"The search came back, six students in total discussed space related theory in their dissertations. We're just reading their work now," Lestrade filled him in as he accepted his drink.

"Any look more suspicious than the others?" Mateo asked as he set the herbal tea in front of Mike.

"Well three of these merely mention space theory in passing, but the other three are quite closely related. I can give you their names?"

"Isn't that a breach of some kind of data security law?" Mateo asked dubiously.

"I suppose, but I take it you aren't going to do more than run their names through your own records to look for a likely suspect? Not giving you them could make your job harder, and I want to see whoever killed Max behind bars," Mike said passionately.

"It might not even be a student here, hopefully. However we appreciate your cooperation," Lestrade said quickly. He seemed about to continue talking when his phone began to ring.

"Lestrade," he said as he answered it. From the pained look that crossed his face Mateo knew who he was talking to. "What? You weren't supposed to go there! Yes… yes bu-… Sherlock we need to discuss this. Bring the laptop back to the offices and we can go through your evidence."

"Sherlock Holmes?" Mike asked, and he seemed to be quite interested in the titbit of news.

"Yes, he has something that could be of use to us. Thanks again for these names, we'll let you know when we catch who did this," Lestrade said quickly and nodded for Mateo to head for the door.

Once outside once more, and away from interested parties, Lestrade was much more open. "It seems that Sherlock is certain it was the housemate, but again has a long list of guesswork that would never hold up in court."

"So you have to go and see whether he is right, and if there is a way to prove his hypothesis?" Mateo asked.

"Probably not the first half, Sherlock is rarely wrong. Don't tell him I said that," Lestrade almost begged. "But we need to figure out how to catch the guy."

The drive back to the yard was quiet as both people were wrapped up in their own thoughts. Mateo was still cradling the last of his drink as he wanted to savour it. He hadn't tried a caramel latte before and had only ordered it on a whim, and was pleasantly surprised by it.

"It was his housemate!" Sherlock exclaimed before they had even finished walking through the door to Lestrade's office.

"What makes you think it was the housemate?" Mateo asked curiously.

"And you were only supposed to be at the morgue," Lestrade said in accusatory exasperation.

"I was done in the morgue after five minutes. Cause of death was a blow to the back of the head, before the blood was drained from cuts made to the back of the knees. So I had time to spare and went were there promised to be more interesting information available. Max was a neat person as we saw from his personal grooming and clothing. His room has been ripped apart and carefully put back together. Whoever did it was good, and put things back in almost the same place, but it's obvious that everything has been touched and moved. Then there's the fact that his laptop was already displaying the hint for the password, and no one gets their own password wrong for their laptop, especially students. Thirdly the guy was exhibiting classic signs of guilt: sweating, excessively snappy, lack of sleep, twitching… I could go on," Sherlock rattled off.

"Well the last sign could be because he's a student taking exams, most people on campus today looked like that," Mateo pointed out.

"But not all of them have murdered their housemate," Sherlock snapped.

It surprised Mateo how forceful Sherlock was being, and it made him wonder if the man was used to his word being taken as law. If he was rarely wrong then he might not be used to having to justify his opinion. However when he looked closer at the man, Mateo saw how his eyes were shining gleefully, seemingly at the opportunity to solve the puzzle. And he probably enjoyed the debate and the argument to prove who was right.

"How do you know? They may have just been more subtle at it," Mateo smirked.

"Give us the name of his housemate, we can see whether there is any evidence to suggest he would want to commit a crime like this," Lestrade stepped in to stop the arguing. "And Matt, go buy yourself lunch. I'll ring you when we're done."

"You don't have my number," he pointed out.

"Sherlock has it… Hang on," Lestrade seemed to realise the folly of his assumption and quickly pulled out his own phone. Thirty seconds later he had the number and Mateo was heading out the door.

Mateo glanced at his watch and was surprised that it was two in the afternoon. To avoid any possible arguments he did as he was told and made himself scarce, and went and explored the area.

Two hours later he was sitting on a bench in a nearby park, sandwich packet crumpled by his side and drink to his lips.

"The housemate didn't confess, and he's too calm for Lestrade to pressure into a confession. We need to persuade him."

The sudden voice by his side almost caused Mateo to inhale the drink he had been in the process of swallowing. As it was he managed to catch himself and only had to cough up a small trickle of fluid, rather than an entire mouthful. When his streaming eyes had finally cleared he turned to glare at Sherlock.

"How did you find me?" Mateo asked angrily.

"It wasn't hard, I know the area better than you and know you would rather go for a healthier meal than fast food. So a salad based meal narrowed it to Subway as the only shop in the closest half a mile," Sherlock announced. "Jamie Power thinks he has pulled off a seamless crime, although he is an idiot. I get a crack at him next."

"And you couldn't have just let me know this over the phone because…?" Mateo asked as he quickly put his drink down.

"Because I needed to get something on the way over here. Come on, this case is almost over," Sherlock didn't wait for a response before striding off towards Scotland Yard.

Mateo cursed quietly and hurried to catch up, before remembering he had left his rubbish on the bench. He had to run to catch the consulting detective after that, but he was at least happy he had left the place tidy.

"What do you think you can do differently to what I did?" Lestrade asked as they once again knocked on a rather grubby front door.

"Wait and see," was all that Sherlock said.

The actual detective didn't have time to reply before the door was opened again. Mateo finally got a look at their possible murderer, and was surprised. The man in front of them was tall and lanky, with gingery blond hair that curled slightly. One of his eyes pointed a tiny bit in the wrong direction, and he had a few days worth of stubble on his chin. All in all, he looked more like an absentminded scientist than a killer.

"Back again? Surely this is getting towards police harassment." The man said lazily as he waved them in.

"This visit won't be long, my associate here just has a few questions for you," Lestrade said politely, although Mateo knew enough about the man to know he was fighting his urge to snap.

"Would you mind if I made myself a cup of tea?" Sherlock asked, before heading off to make one without even waiting for a response.

"Sure," Jamie said dryly as he followed on.

"I'll make a round then," Sherlock said with false cheer as he started hunting for mugs and tea bags. Mateo was baffled about Sherlock's plan, but stayed quiet in the background as he waited for his supposed cousin to get to the point.

Five minutes of awkward silence later the four of them were sitting around a rather small dining table.

"So you know we are here about your housemate," Sherlock began.

"Come to accuse me of murdering him again?" Jamie asked with a tight smile directed towards Lestrade.

"No, I'm here to run through the evidence and see if you have any ideas," Sherlock countered. "The basic facts is that he was found having been killed by a fatal blow to the head, and then having been drained of blood. Said blood was used to create a fake ritualistic visage."

"How do you know it was fake?" Jamie asked. Mateo listened and decided that he would never have argued that the man wasn't actually interested in the question, rather than covering his tracks.

"There were some quite blatant character errors. To someone who didn't know the language then it looked flawless, but we have some specialists who have experience in the language. Don't we Matt?" Sherlock smirked.

"Err hi," Mateo said and waved at Jamie.

"Then there's the fact that whoever did it completely neglected the part of the ritual that states that the blood has to be drained from the heart for the ritual to work," Sherlock said.

"And finally the handwriting matched yours," at that point the man pulled a sheaf of paper from his pocket and unfolded it.

The single page turned out to be two, one was a photo of the crime scene. More specifically it was of the writing swirling around the body. The second piece was a sample of writing that Sherlock had found somewhere, probably something he stole when he was at the house the last time.

"I don't see any resemblance," after a long while examining the two pages Jamie looked up with an apologetic look on his face.

Sherlock paused to sip his tea, and Mateo followed suit. Jamie did too, although it looked like Lestrade had admitted defeat and was abstaining from any more caffeine.

"It is as clear as day to a graphologist. So, did you kill your housemate?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes," Jamie said, then looked thunderstruck at his admission.

"How did you do it?" Sherlock pressed before anyone else could speak.

"I told him I had found some awesome example of architecture, he was a nerd for history of any kind, and did it there and then. I wore gloves and passed it off because of the rain," Jamie looked horrified as he blurted out the truth.

"Why did you do it?" Sherlock finished.

"He came running to me all excited about some kind of breakthrough with the communication system on robots. Theoretically his findings would improve communication with surveying machines on other planets. That technology would make a man rich, and I need money."

"But no one would believe you had made the discovery, surely?" Mateo cut in, and made sure to word his sentence as a question.

"After the tragic death of my housemate I would have delved into his interests and hobbies as a way of letting his memory live on. During this time I would stumble across his preliminary research but would make the ultimate discovery myself," Jamie explained.

"I think we have enough here," Sherlock pulled a voice recorder from his pocket and stopped it. He tossed it at Lestrade. "Thanks ever so much for the tea."

"You used Veritaserum on him, didn't you?" Mateo asked as they left Lestrade to handcuff the murderer.

"I don't know what you mean," Sherlock said with a smile on his face.

"That's completely illegal, both for you to use it and also for it to be used on a muggle," Mateo groaned and quickly flicked his gaze up and down the street as if expecting aurors to pop out of nowhere.

"They won't know, and we needed to get him to confess," Sherlock shrugged.

"But how are they going to prove it in court?" the teen asked.

"There's enough circumstantial evidence to get the jury to listen, and Lestrade isn't completely hopeless at pulling all the strings together," Sherlock admitted as he lead the way back to the nearest main street.

"But he'll deny the whole thing," Mateo protested. "And did you give him the antidote?"

"I will… Later," Sherlock grinned, and it was a slightly unnerving sight. "Now, there was some proposition you were going to put to me wasn't there?"


	54. Chapter 54 - Putting Faces to Names

**A/N: Two updates in a week, I haven't done that since... well in months anyway! We've got to be getting close to a year since I started publishing this story too haven't we? Or have we passed that date? No idea, I'll have to go look when I'm not actually posting this chapter.**

 **Thanks to everyone who has stuck with this story, and the bizarre side stories. Trust me they are relevant, if rather rambling. I don't seem to be able to do short detours.**

* * *

 **Chapter Fifty Four – Putting Faces to Names**

"Couldn't find anything a little less ostentatious?" Mateo asked as he saw the bright orange colours of the obviously expensive Lamborghini.

"You know me," Tony grinned and slid into the driver's side. He had missed the easy conversations he shared with his godson, even when Mateo had first arrived back in America their conversations were stilted. The time spent away in new surroundings had obviously done him some good. In the silent moments Tony knew that Mateo was still hurting, there was a lost look in his eyes that only showed when he thought he was unobserved. But for the majority of the day Mateo carried on like normal and could actually smile, and that was as much as Tony could ask for.

"So where are we off to? The tower is south of us y'know," Mateo said after a few minutes on the road.

"I thought you might like to check out the Avenger's new base, see a few familiar faces and all that before heading back to your dusty books and stone hallways," Tony said.

"Everyone's moving out of Avenger Tower?" Mateo was surprised.

On the rare occasions that the two had been in contact Tony had specifically avoided talking about the details around the Avengers. "I'm getting out of the game, my actions led to a psychotic robot attempting to destroy the entire planet's populations and forced your Dad to take off. So I'm going back to my advisory job and leaving the defense of the world to those who are better at it. Plus having the Avengers in the middle of a large populated city was always a bad idea, too many innocents to be injured."

"And Iron Man?" Mateo asked.

"He'll be around when needed but for the most part he'll be taking a back seat. If the world truly needs me then I will help out, but I help more by working on the arc technology and renewable energy," Tony hated the thought of not being involved so much, but it was for the best. And it didn't mean he couldn't put the suit on and go for a fly when the urge took him.

"So where's the new HQ?"

"Upstate New York, we commandeered a nice little nook in a secluded forest. Everyone is still welcome at the tower but the majority of events will be happening out there," Tony said vaguely.

"Sounds nice," Mateo fell silent after that and Tony let him enjoy the ride.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Mateo had been right about the state of the new facilities and he had been fascinated by the new set up. It seemed that SHIELD, who hadn't been as utterly destroyed as everyone had been led to believe, was joining with the Avengers to create a stronger organisation that would hopefully be less easily corrupted.

"And now you've seen the building I suppose you should meet the new recruits," Tony announced loudly as he barged through a large pair of double doors.

"For goodness sake Tony, could you not saunter in here when we are training?" a familiar exasperated voice called over.

"Who's the new guy?" came a very heavily accented voice.

"Young master Banner I presume?" the third voice was incredibly familiar.

"JARVIS? Sorry, I suppose it is Vision now," Mateo said as he walked further into the room.

"Mateo?" Steve said in confusion. "You've changed a lot."

"Puberty, has to happen sometime," Mateo shrugged off the question and curiously studied the group.

Rhodey he had met before so he merely greeted the man with a smile and wave. Natasha came and gave him a hug, and up close Mateo could see the tiredness and strain around her eyes. From the small smile she gave him it was obvious they both understood each other and what they were feeling. That revelation surprised Mateo, he hadn't thought that Natasha wasn't at all close to his father.

But before he could ask any question Steve was dragging him forward to meet the rest of the group. Apparently Sam had been around for a few years, but between his disappearing act and his holiday Mateo hadn't been around to meet him. The quick explanation of the wing suit had Mateo itching to try it on, and he managed to wheedle a promise from Sam for a demonstration and lecture about it at some point.

Vision was a being that Mateo couldn't get his head around to start with. After spending so long talking to an AI with the same voice it was bizarre to find a creature of flesh and blood talking with the same mannerisms. Vision didn't really have the same type of humour as JARVIS, so he didn't really get the joking that Tony inevitably brought along. But Vision was kind and seemed to truly be fascinated by Mateo's time away. Out of them all he was pretty sure Vision had deduced there was something more than just puberty at play with Mateo's changes, but he was grateful that he kept it silent.

"And this is Pietro and Wanda," Steve finished off the introductions by pulling Mateo over to the two that had been hanging back.

Mateo's previously good mood evaporated instantly as he was brought face to face with the Russian twins. What photos existed in the media had already given him a good idea as to what the pair looked like. What he wasn't expecting was the feeling he got from them.

Pietro looked worn and tired, and apparently he had only recently been released from hospital after recovering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was wearing a blue and white t-shirt with black jeans, with bright blue shoes. Wanda was wearing black and red, and Mateo guessed that both of the twins would rarely wear other colours. The one similarity between the pair was the unmistakable feeling of guilt and sorrow that surrounded them. Mateo could see it in their eyes.

"Hello Mateo, we have heard lots about you," Pietro said hesitantly.

"Hmph," he knew it wasn't very courteous, but Mateo had no idea how to be civil with the pair so resulted to silence.

"Apparently you and I are quite alike," Wanda tried this time.

"Nuh-uh, bad idea," Tony muttered, but no one heard him over another much louder voice.

"We are nothing alike! For one my actions didn't result in thousands dying, and I didn't side with a megalomaniac," Mateo spat.

"We made a mistake! And as soon as we realised we helped fix it," Wanda said desperately, not even trying to defend herself.

"How were we to know Ultron planned to destroy the planet?" Pietro backed her up.

"Hum, how about the fact he wanted to destroy the Avengers? Granted you hate Tony's guts for killing your parents, I can understand that rage. But Thor is a god, Norse mythology never even hinted at him being evil. You were created by an organisation that tortured humans and whose slogan was _'Cut off one head, two more shall take its place.'_ Surely that was a tiny fucking hint?" Mateo almost screamed.

"Mateo, calm down," Steve tried to interrupt.

"No I will not," he snarled back. "You can pat yourselves on your back for finally seeing sense, but don't you dare think that makes you alright in my books. You have a long way to go before I come anywhere close to consider forgiving you."

And with that Mateo turned and swept from the room without looking back.

"Well that went well," Tony broke the silence.

"In what way at all was that good?" Sam released a breath he hadn't known he had been holding.

"Both of them are alive, and Mateo didn't resort to cursing them," Tony pointed out.

"He hates us," Wanda said remorsefully. "He didn't even give us a chance."

"Give him time, he's a teenager going through a stressful situation," Steve tried to reassure the pair.

"I'll go talk to him," Natasha offered.

"Too late, Vision's missing," Sam looked around and pointed out the other missing person.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Although he hadn't been in the building for long Mateo was able to easily find a route to the outside and quickly sprinted across the lawn into the trees. No one had tried to stop him or follow him, so as soon as he was safely hidden amongst the pines he slowed and slumped down against the trunk of the nearest tree. He tried to calm his breathing and tried to work on making sense of his turbulent emotions, but nothing seemed to work. After a few minutes of fruitless breathing exercises he huffed in annoyance and got up to start pacing.

"I have observed a number of people resort to pacing in order to help their thought processes, does it actually work?"

The curious and calm voice had Mateo starting in surprise. He whirled around to look at the newcomer and was once again struck by how different the Vision looked.

"Sometimes," he replied shortly once he was over the shock. "Why are you here?"

"I registered from the responses of everyone else in the room that your outburst was most uncommon. After such expressive events people normally find talking to someone else useful in sorting their thoughts and emotions. I felt that I would likely be one of the more appropriate people to approach you," Vision said in a calm manner.

"Why would you be best?" although he was starting to think a little clearer than before Mateo wanted to see why Vision's reasoning had told him to come.

"Natasha's emotions are too similar to yours to allow her to see both sides of the argument dispassionately. Sam doesn't know you well enough, and neither does Rhodey. Tony would likely act inappropriately for the situation and wouldn't help you work out the answers you need. And Steve would likely lecture you about your language and cause another outburst," Vision summarised.

Mateo couldn't help it, he laughed. "Yeah that's Steve, best intentions but a bit oblivious at times."

"Why are you so angry at the Maximoff twins?" the Vision asked.

For a while Mateo thought that the man in front of him, or at least Mateo thought of him as a man, was trying to take the role of a counsellor to make him work through his issues. But after a few moments he realised that it was actually a genuine question, and that he didn't understand why.

"Their actions caused my Dad to run off," Mateo said simply.

"But they are sorry," Vision said.

"It doesn't make it alright! They put their trust in the wrong man and now my Dad might never come back. How could they trust a murderer?" Mateo spat.

"You trusted a murderer, or did you follow Laufeyson under duress?" the Vision countered.

Mateo spluttered in shock. After a few seconds he finally managed to think of some kind of response. "That's different."

"How so?" again with the naïve and curious voice.

"Ultron wanted to destroy the world. Loki had already tried and failed, he was only interested in me last summer," Mateo defended himself.

"You were with Loki?!" Mateo groaned as the obnoxiously loud voice of his godfather broke through their rational debate. "Why the hell did you think that was a good idea?"

"How did you know?" Mateo ignored the other human and focussed on the creation in front of him.

"Your changes that you put down to puberty are too different from the features of either of your parents for this to be normal genetics. A simple scan of your features and a search against all likely forces to have been interested in you results in only one match: Loki."

"You spent a year with Loki?" Tony asked, louder this time.

"Oh for the love of-, yes I was with Loki! Alright Tony? Want to ask that again any louder?" Mateo snapped.

"What possessed you to go with him?" Tony asked, and Mateo was almost at a calm enough place to register the shock in his voice.

"Because I have to defeat a psychotic murderer who knows a tonne more magic than I do. Dumbledore didn't seem interested in training me, and he still isn't. Muggle training is all well and good but that's going to be as much use as a chocolate fireguard when it comes down to him and me. Sorry for wanting to actually survive if there is a war, and for taking any kind of opportunity to raise my odds!" Mateo ranted.

"But he could have been lying and might have just murdered you," countered the billionaire.

"I'm likely a dead man walking anyway, what would it have mattered if he had just sped up the process?" Mateo spat out. "You're right Vision, it was best if only you had come."

"Sorry Mateo, but you know we were all worried sick about you," the fact that Tony had apologised was enough to stop Mateo's anger in its tracks. "For the first eight months after you disappeared Bruce barely let his phone out of his sight in case you would ring. He bought presents at your birthday and every holiday just in case. After that he gave up and thought you were dead, and it killed all of us to see him grieving. If he knew the truth then I bet he would be back in a shot."

"I'm sorry," Mateo managed to choke out in a small voice.

He hated that Tony's simple confession had reduced him to a small child who simply wanted a hug from his father. He hated that Tony knew exactly how to manipulate him to cool his anger and to turn the tables on him. He hated his actions and decisions.

"Can we go now?" Mateo asked.

"Sure thing squirt, I'll get the car. See you soon, Vision," Tony said without any kind of judgement in his voice.

There wasn't much conversation in the car on the way home, Tony pretended to concentrate on driving whilst Mateo concentrated on the scenery. In the weeks leading up to Mateo's return to America the pair had exchanged texts planning what they would do for the final fortnight Mateo would be there. Although to start with he had argued that it was rather stupid for him to return simply to turn around and head to England so soon. Tony eventually won him over with the argument that making an entrance would gain the attention of the media and hopefully would show Bruce that his son had returned. Failing that then at least the Muggleborn students at Hogwarts would see that Mateo was back and they would probably tell their wizarding friends. Then September wouldn't be such a pain with hundreds of stares to deal with. The best place to do that was at what used to be Avenger's Tower.

Mateo was dragged from the pessimistic thoughts he had sunk into when they reached New York. He let himself be distracted by the familiar hustle and bustle of humanity, by all the sights and sounds he had forgotten about over the last year. Thankfully he was in a reasonably decent mood when they reached the tower, as there around the door was a familiar hated group of people with cameras. He couldn't even feel smug that he had been proven right about Tony's choice of vehicle as the flash of bulbs announced the fact that the paparazzi had noticed the car.

"How do you want to play this, are we facing the limelight or going in peacefully?" Tony asked.

"You know the plan," Mateo sighed. "Let's get this over and done with."

So Tony pulled the car up to the front door and they both climbed out. While Tony was still given a decent amount of attention he ignored the cameras in favour of getting Mateo's bag. Mateo however was immediately swamped by the majority of the people there, and he had to stop himself from backing away into the car to get away from the cameras in his face.

"Mateo! Mateo, where have you been this summer?"

"Have you heard anything from your father?"

"What is your opinion of the Hulk's rampage in Africa?"

"Do you agree that he needs to be better controllled? What about the calls for him to be held accountable for the 300 deaths he caused?"

"Enough!" Mateo shouted and held a hand up.

Thankfully the adults around him listened and they promptly shut up. Mateo was quite surprised that he had been successful in his wish to get some space to talk, normally the media weren't so compliant. But then he saw the fear in their eyes and realised that their opinion of him had changed. When he had come to America he had just been a sweet kid that everyone had liked to coo over. But that had been over three years ago, and now he was almost full grown with muscles starting to show under the rolled up arms of his shirt. And with his father having the unfortunate reputation he had Mateo was unsurprised that these people were afraid of angering him, and there being severe consequences.

"Thank you, you must realise it is impossible to answer whilst you are being drowned out by those you try to talk to? Rather illogical of you all," he started with a wry smile and was glad to hear a couple of chuckles from the reporters and paparazzi.

"Now, I shall try to answer what questions I remember but then I must be off, I need to sort out all my stuff for school. I have been staying with friends, I know you know that but I am not saying more on the matter as they like their privacy and I enjoyed the chance to get some peace. No offence but I am not cut out for the limelight unlike my godfather." Another ripple of laughter went through the group and Mateo didn't miss the snort of indignation and amusement from Tony.

"No I have not heard from Dad and although I very much wish I had. I understand his desire for solitude and hope that he finds the comfort he is seeking -."

"But it was irresponsible of him to leave you. As you said: 'rather illogical' of him," someone interrupted.

"I know him better than you do," Mateo snapped, before having to take a breath to calm himself. "The actions of the Hulk cannot be blamed on him nor my father as neither of them wanted to do what they were forced to. If you wish to punish the one responsible then you are too late, he is already dead."

It galled him to defend Wanda, but the choice to do so would have a better impact on the Avengers than if he had placed the blame on the woman. The media's opinion of He watched the uncomfortable shuffling of the crowd with a tiny sense of satisfaction, he had scored a point against these hounds and they were listening to him. He was also confused though, these people were disturbed by the thought of death and violence, and yet they were rather violent and forceful themselves.

"The only time the Hulk killed anyone in the five years I was with him outside of America it was because a gang threatened to kill me unless my father obeyed them. Even those deaths caused my father grief and upset despite the others clearly being the worst kind of people. So can you imagine how he is feeling knowing he was forced to destroy and kill? Not even the greatest soldier can kill without there being some kind of psychological damage; those that can kill without remorse should not be lauded but feared."

"But he still killed hundreds of people," someone protested.

"And if my Dad is the man I know he is he will continue to grieve for those caught in the Hulk's forced rampage years after the media has forgotten their names. He's his own worst enemy, you don't need to lock him away in a prison to punish him when he is already doing that well enough on his own. That's probably half the reason he has disappeared is to try to come to terms with his guilt. If he'd hung around he'd have to face you guys every day reminding him of just how awful his forced rampage had been."

"Do you think he will ever be back?" another voice asked hesitantly.

"Perhaps, when he's ready," Mateo smiled sadly.

"But he's left you here," a third voice further back pointed out.

"Very astute observation there," Mateo couldn't help but say, and Tony chuckled behind him. "I have an excellent Godfather who has been doing a great impression of a mother hen over the last five months, I have the Avengers keeping an eye out for me and searching for Dad. I doubt there was a much better place he could leave me."

"It's still irresponsible of him," the first person to bring it up a while ago said again.

"Well you can bring that up with him when he next appears," Mateo grinned at the worried look on the person's face. "Now if you will excuse me ladies and gents I could murder a cup of tea."

The laughter that followed told Mateo had been reasonably successful in his handling of the group and he and Tony managed to get through the mass quite easily. Once inside the building he dropped the polite smile and sighed heavily.

"You might not think you are built for the limelight but I doubt that you could have handled that any better," Tony said as he headed for the lift.

"I've learnt how to act from the best of them, I hate doing it though," Mateo admitted as he nodded politely to the two smart figures at the reception desk and carried on walking.

"Do you think I enjoy it?" Tony asked frankly.

"You seem to."

"That's another part of the act you have to cultivate, it's the only way to get through it all," Tony advised. "Chinese tonight?"

"Sounds good. I need to go shopping tomorrow for more normal clothes, if that's alright?" Mateo asked as he claimed his bag back off his godfather.

"Sure thing, I can either go with you or Happy can."

"Happy is probably best idea, no offence but I really don't want to be there longer than I have to and you do rather enjoy signing things for the kids."

"Fair enough, but I need you to test something for me," Tony didn't ask for permission to use Mateo as a guinea pig.

"What bit of technology do you want me to take with me to Hogwarts? Is it one of your protoype magic mobiles?" Mateo joked.

"Not quite," Tony said.

And before Mateo could react the billionaire had grabbed his arm and had slapped something around his wrist. There was a rather final sounding click, and then Tony let go once more. Mateo raised his left arm up to eye level and inspected the new bracelet he wore.

The main body of the item was silver and a few millimetres thick, whilst being an inch wide. The chunk metal bracelet had intricate etchings all around it, and Mateo noted that the patterns were reminiscent of the Celtic twirls on Mjolnir. He couldn't see any obvious hinge or clasp, which explained the clicking sound as the bracelet seemed to have sealed itself shut. On the back of the bracelet were three small glowing blue orbs, glowing innocently like large LED lights.

"Are those arc reactors?" Mateo looked up at his godfather.

"Experimental miniaturised arc reactors," Tony looked incredibly pleased with himself, and Mateo agreed with him. "When you went missing Bruce and I joked about having to fit you with a tracker the next time you reappeared. I didn't manage to finish the technology to get to put one of these on Bruce, but I can make sure I know where you are at all times."

"This is what you were working on when I came back to Malibu," Mateo realised.

"I'd finally figured out how to scale the arc reactor down to be useable for a bracelet, I just had to figure out how to make a tracking bracelet that didn't make you look like a convict on parole," Tony joked.

"So Are all three arc reactors necessary? What are their output?" Mateo looked even closer and could indeed see the tell-tale triangle of light in the middle of each circle.

"Each one could theoretically run for ten years each, so there is no getting away from me for thirty years. The bracelet only needs one reactor to run it, but I put two more in for show and as back-ups," Tony grinned.

"It's really light," Mateo shook his arm to demonstrate his point.

"I managed to sneak some vibranium from the salvage operation after the Ultron incident. Etching it with the detailing was a nightmare, but now the only really weighty components are the arc reactors. The entire thing only weighs about eight ounces."

"So with this you can also figure out exactly where Hogwarts is," Mateo realised.

"I could do, if I hadn't done that already," Tony smirked.

"You know it is supposed to be unplottable for a reason," Mateo sighed.

"Then why did they broadcast the fact it is right next to Hogsmeade, which isn't unplottable and isn't heavily warded from apparition etcetera?" Tony countered.

"That's actually a very valid point," Mateo said slowly as he thought it through.

"Of course, it's me you're talking to," Tony said with supreme smugness. "Now go drop your stuff off, we need to make a list of things you are going to be buying over the coming days."

"Are you sure it's okay for us to go to Salem for my school supplies? It's almost a five hour drive from here," Mateo asked as the lift doors opened up into the communal floor.

"No problem at all, it'll be fun to give the Lamborghini another spin," Tony said with a grin. "Perhaps we'll be able to get to top speed this time."

"Not a chance Tony," Mateo said with a semi-serious scowl. "I'm going to my room to drop my stuff off, see you when the takeaway arrives."

"The level below is the Avenger prep floor, next level up has all the bedrooms of the permanent residents. Yours is last on the right."

Mateo nodded and went to press the button but before he could Tony stopped him.

"Look, Mateo…" the billionaire looked like he was fighting for the right words to say, so Mateo gave him time. "I'm sorry for my reaction earlier, when I walked in on you talking with Vision about Loki. Like I said, we were all worried and terrified that you were in danger. To hear that you had been with _him_ , especially when he was supposed to be dead, caught me by surprise. It's odd to think that Loki would have a decent bone in his body let alone that he could actually care about someone enough to teach them. I overreacted, you are much more mature than I was at that age, and still am today. But I am supposed to be your guardian until Bruce comes back, so surely you can forgive me a bit for my explosion. Just please let us know if you are going to disappear off again."

"It's not like you won't know anyway," Mateo said as he shook his wrist at Tony.

"That's only in case of emergencies, I'm not going to be watching a monitor to see your actions each day," Tony protested.

"I know, and I believe you," Mateo gave his godfather a sideways hug. "I'm sorry for scaring you all, and I won't do it again. And I'll forgive you if you forgive me for disappearing."

"Deal, now go put your bag in your room, I'll order the food. It'll probably be here in half an hour," Tony got out of the lift and wandered over to the bar area, presumably for the takeaway menus. Mateo pressed the button for the next level and stepped out into a much more enclosed hallway.

Although he had to admit the open plan layout of the floor below was attractive for visitors and entertaining, Mateo was glad his room hadn't gotten any bigger. It was actually slightly smaller than the last room he owned in Avenger Tower, and he was happy with the changes. The colour scheme was similar, although the colour now was of a darker shade. The few personal effects he owned were laid out as if he had placed them himself, and from that Mateo knew it had been his dad to decorate for him.

It didn't take him long to put his clothes into the wardrobes, which had been stocked just like the ones at Malibu.

Mateo quickly tested out his bracelet in the shower, and was unsurprised when it passed his playing around with flying colours, before quickly dressing and heading off to find Tony. Although he was glad to have gotten away and had new adventures with John and Sherlock, he was determined to try to make the most of the next two weeks with his Godfather.


	55. Chapter 55 - Same But Different

**A/N: So I've literally just woken up from sleeping for about 12 hours straight! Stressful week at work, I was having to get two owls to like me so that they would behave when we went on a photo shoot. One didn't behave and really didn't enjoy the day, so luckily his brother was quite happy sitting and posing! I probably didn't have to worry as much as I was about the whole thing, but I have a habit of expecting the worst outcome. I suppose in some ways that's good as I am only pleasantly surprised when things go well, but it does mean I am already going grey!**

 **I kind of love and hate my job, as I appeared around the corner for the first shot with the owl and everyone collapsed into puddles of goo over how sweet he was... I don't get that anymore as I work with them every day, and to me it's just another owl to pick up and work with. I still love my job, but it's a bit of a shame that you get used to it and the magic wears off a little as time passes.**

 **Sorry, bit of a tangent there. How has your weeks been? It's summer holidays here, so I hope you guys on holiday are having a good time!**

* * *

 **Chapter Fifty Five – Same But Different**

At Mateo's request they arrived at Platform Nine and Three Quarters on September the first with half an hour to spare. The platform was virtually dead, only a few tired looking muggle families were wandering around, some in seemingly tired dazes. Mateo was surprised that they had company at all, but guessed that these families had travelled long distances to get there, and had factored in plenty of time for bad traffic. It made him think, what did Muggleborn students from Scotland or Ireland do? Did their parents have to travel all the way to London just to turn around and go home again after their kids left? Did they do it three times a year?

The random questions helped to distract Mateo from the whispers from some of the twenty occupants of the platform. Even if he had been paying attention, dealing with twenty people was much easier than the entire school on the platform at once. With virtually every compartment empty he had his pick of seats, but chose to sit in the very last compartment before the staff carriage. He doubted that the kindly old lady who pushed the sweet trolley would be able to do anything if he got mobbed by other students, but it would at least be out of the way at the back. With his trunk tucked out of the way and Garuda happily perched on his shoulder, the owl had barely left his side over the last two weeks, Mateo hopped back onto the platform to his Godfather.

"Thank you for everything Tony," Mateo said as he hugged the man tightly.

"I could hardly leave you outside in the cold like an abandoned puppy," Tony snorted. Mateo had regularly voiced his gratitude over the last week, and Tony's replies had deteriorated from reciprocated love to snarky comments.

"True. Anyway, you'd better go before people start arriving," Mateo hinted.

"Are you embarrassed by your loving Godfather?" Tony pretended to be hurt.

"You know why Tony, you need to get back swiftly to look for Dad," Mateo rolled his eyes, but then changed mood to complete seriousness. "You will let me know of any updates, won't you?"

"If we hear anything we'll let you know," Tony reassured him.

"Seriously though Tony, Dad always said he would tell me if things were going on but he never did. I won't be able to forgive you if you even find out that Dad is dead and keep it from me for longer than necessary. Owls are allowed to drop off emergency letters at any point in the day, and I'm sure you travelling to Hogwarts yourself wouldn't take you many hours either," Mateo rattled off in an almost panic.

"Mateo calm down," Tony said gently as he put a reassuring hand on the youth's shoulder. "If it helps I'll send a note every day with regular updates on what we get up to, how long it takes Nat to pin Rhodey to the mat, whether Sam does ever catch the Vision when they fly, if I ever manage to wind Steve up about his language… Seriously, if it helps I will even let you know how much I am eating and sleeping. And when we find your Dad I will race an owl here to make sure you find out as soon as possible. _And_ I'll work on a magic resistant phone so you'll never have to wait for information."

"Alright that is a bit extreme," Mateo gave a slightly watery chuckle. "But seriously, any news on Dad and you will let me know immediately. I can help," Mateo stated.

"Bruce would have my hide for agreeing after you said that," Tony said with certainty. "But I know what you are like, so if we know for certain that Bruce is somewhere and you can get to him safely then we will let you come along. If there is any risk of you getting hurt then you _will not_ be coming with us, the Hulk would have my hide. Although if you have gotten half of Loki's skills then I doubt anyone could touch you."

Mateo tried to ignore the betrayed look that Tony had on his face. It had been a sore topic that they had both danced around over the last fortnight, and neither of them had seen the need to bring it up and risk another argument. So instead he simply said; "Thanks Tony."

"For the billionth time, it's alright. Now go read a book or something, I'll message you in a few days," Tony gave the tall youth a hug and nudged him towards the train.

With no impetus from the departing train to speed their goodbyes up Mateo had to force himself to turn and walk away from his guardian. If he had turned around at any point he would have likely seen Tony being as reluctant to leave, and also shooting uncertain glances back to the train.

Finally Mateo was fully alone in his compartment, but he couldn't settle to reading. The new textbooks he had bought in Salem for the upcoming year covered many new interesting topics, some that he had likely missed the beginning lectures on last year. However despite the allure of new knowledge Mateo couldn't concentrate on the parchment, and instead fell to plotting.

Thankfully he didn't have to wait long before the station started to fill up, and eventually Mateo was joined by his friends. He was glad he had made a quick appearance at the end of the last year, he would've bet all his money on Hermione killing him if she was seeing him for the first time on the train. As it was Kevin worked a small amount of crowd control to save Mateo from a bonecrushing hug. Neville was the last of the three fourth years to arrive and manage to quite easily distract the three from bickering over the Avengers.

Hermione had accidentally almost started a mini argument by talking about what she thought Mateo would enjoy. However she didn't know about the ongoing hostilities between Mateo and Wanda. The small comment about how good it was to have another female on team, and one with such amazing powers, threatened to start a small explosion from Mateo.

"Have you lost weight Nev?" Kevin asked, he seemed to have picked up on the sudden tense atmosphere and desperately tried to change the subject.

"And you've grown some too," Mateo added eager to ensure the new topic didn't die down. He really didn't want the new year to start badly.

Mateo had carefully studied his friends when they had each arrived, and he really wanted to say how they had all changed. Whilst all of them had grown taller, Neville had indeed lost quite a lot of his puppy fat and had started to form some muscles. Kevin was still the tallest of the group, and still rather gangly, but his features were streamlining. His cheekbones were more prominent, and his jaw had started to sharpen, hinting at quite handsome aristocratic looks when he was an adult.

Hermione was still the shortest of the group, but whilst she had grown taller she had also started to really develop curves. Mateo didn't want to look like he was ogling her, but she was definitely becoming pleasing to the eye, although she had yet to master the knack of taming her wild hair. Mateo thought her hair gave her character and he liked it messy, but he would happily put money on Hermione being drop dead gorgeous with it being tamed into silky waves. He shook his head to rid it of hormonal thoughts and returned his attention to the conversation.

"I've been remodelling one of the neglected greenhouses at the manor and I had to do all the work by hand, it took quite a while. I think even if I was allowed to do magic my Grandmother would have forbade me in case I made a mistake and accidentally exploded some of the glass panes," Neville shrugged.

"It makes me feel like a slacker," Kevin groaned.

"Ah don't worry we can give you extra work to do with our training," Mateo grinned at their surprised looks.

"We're starting properly this year?" Neville said what the three of them were thinking.

"I reckon we can, we're talented enough to attempt things alone without too greater a risk," Mateo said. "Plus you all must have seen the _Daily Prophet_ report on the Quidditch World Cup, the Death Eaters seem to be getting restless."

Having been out of the loop for over a year Mateo hadn't heard about the Quidditch World Cup until he saw it on the front of the paper at Tony's house. He had been quite gutted to have missed what sounded like a once in a lifetime game, to have the opportunity to see the best Quidditch players in the world compete against each other. But the attacks afterwards had definitely soured the event for everyone, and had ruined it permanently for those who had sustained injuries.

What had shocked Mateo most was that the media interest in the event died down practically overnight. To him the reappearance of Death Eaters and the Dark Mark being cast warranted more than three articles on the subject. But it seemed like the Wizarding society in Britain was happy to bury its head in the sand and move back to the ever so interesting topic of the latest public scandal going on between celebrities. Either people really were determined to deny any kind of threat, or they were being paid to forcefully redirect people's attention from the horrifying thought. Mateo wasn't sure which was the worse of the two.

"I've figured out a way for us to communicate which will help," Hermione proceeded to explain her idea of enchanted coins.

By the time they had reached the school once more they had finalised all of the details they had put off over the last year and all of them were content that they were as prepared as they could be. So when they disembarked from the train in Scotland they promptly pounced on the twins and secured a carriage for the six of them to share their ideas. It was a little cramped but they dealt with it in order to gain some privacy.

The weather had changed from a bright if overcast day to a unexpectedly cold evening, complete with lashing rain and strong winds. They hadn't had to wait long for their carriage, but even that short pause in the rain had left their cloaks soaked through. Mateo sent a hopeful prayer out that the first years would be alright on their crossing to the school. Although magic seemed to be able to combat all sorts of problems, Mateo wasn't exactly sure where the teacher's drew the line between 'dangerous' and 'character building'.

"The only problem with this idea is that there is apparently something big going on at the school this year," Fred said once they had finished talking through their ideas.

"Dad wouldn't tell us what, and Malfoy was being smug and boasting that he knew what is happening. If we get involved we might not have the time to practice as much as the rest of the group," George added.

"Well we will revise the plan once we know. Until then we run on the assumption we will have two evenings a week at least to dedicate to training," Mateo said and everyone nodded in agreement. "If any of us get to participate then we can help them, whilst the others focus on our training idea."

They didn't have much more time to talk after that as their carriage pulled to a stop by the school. As he had gotten into the habit of, Mateo patted the heads of the Thestrals that had pulled them before turning to walk into the school. He stubbornly ignored the stares that followed him, mostly from the Muggleborn students, and claimed a seat at the Ravenclaw table halfway down the room.

Although the students from the normal world were curious about him because of his Dad's disappearance, many of the students from the magical world too cast curious gazes at him. Mateo mentally shrugged and guessed that was more because of the fact that he disappeared for an entire year with no warning or reason. It seemed that his and Tony's gamble had paid off though, there were relatively few shocked or angry stares directed at him.

It was still an odd reminder each year of how they were progressing through the years to see more younger students around them, and Mateo actually found himself feeling rather nostalgic. He had missed an entire year of growing up with the school, and it showed as he sat silently on the edge of his friendship group, unable to join in with the latest inside jokes. Relationships that had burst onto the scene then crashed and burned had no meaning to him really. Antics of the younger students were interesting to hear about, but he had no idea who was who. However he was glad to hear that Colin Creevey had apparently bounced back from his ordeal in his first year, and had been chasing after Quidditch players for photos and autographs.

Eventually the low rumble of conversation died off as McGonagall strode through the giant doors. Mateo wasn't the only one to smile at the seemingly tiny first years who followed after the Transfiguration teacher like ducklings. In some ways Mateo couldn't believe how long ago it was that they had been the little lost ducklings.

The Sorting Hat's song was quite neutral and upbeat, compared to the last one Mateo had heard, before the professor proceeded to start the sorting without delay. As before Mateo politely clapped every student, obviously more enthusiastically for those coming to his own house, and enjoyed watching the excited and happy younglings trot towards their assigned table. The new cohort seemed slightly bigger than his own year, and some of the group took a while to be sorted. As a result the sorting took half an hour longer than Mateo remembered it taking, and although he knew it was important not to rush he was starting to get hungry.

Eventually though everyone was seated and the feast began which quite a few people were glad about. Mateo had his back to the Slytherin table, which gave him too good a view of Ron shovelling food from platter to plate to mouth with rapid speed. It was not a pretty sight, so he quickly turned his attention to his own modest portion of food.

"So I hear that there's a green monster running loose that the authorities are trying to hunt down and kill," Draco said loudly as soon as the chattering began.

"How does he know what's going on amongst the Muggles?" Kevin hissed quietly.

"Probably cornered a hapless second year and bullied them into telling him what has been going on," Mateo said calmly as he continued to pick at a chicken breast.

"I'm just surprised that his supposed spawn is allowed to roam free, usually when an _animal_ proves to be untameable and wild its spawn are killed alongside it," Draco continued.

"Like he knows, I can't imagine him being anywhere near where the hard work happens," Hermione said primly.

Mateo sank into his thoughts with practiced ease and ignored the loud obnoxious comments from the table behind him. Had he been paying attention he would have noticed a few worried glances from both his friends and a couple of adults at the head table. However his lack of reaction kept anyone from commenting for quite a while.

Although the goings on of the Muggle world were rarely monitored by those in the magical one, there were two within the castle that were keeping as close an eye on events as they could. Although they had kept half an ear to the ground since Mateo's first year, since June they had kept two ears to the ground between them to ensure that the one they had sworn to help did not suffer more than he had already.

"Severus, I think that is quite enough," Minerva said quietly.

The dark clothed man next to her didn't reply, or give any kind of signal that he had heard her. However he did turn his attention from his plate of food to his students. That simple look was enough to silence the obnoxious comments from Draco, to the relief of quite a few.

"Thank you," the Scottish teacher said before returning to her own meal.

"Is that Mateo? He changed a lot whilst he was missing," Pomona had noticed the disruption too.

"They are all changing quite a lot," Snape dismissed the point of her question.

"Yes but he looks less like his parents than when he was in second year. Before he was undeniably James' child, now he only carries a vague resemblance to the man," Sprout persisted.

"His hair has changed a lot, and I suppose his jaw and cheekbones are a little straighter than James'… But Lily had quite fine features," McGonagall again tried to diffuse the situation. Snape shot her a confused look, rarely did she ever take his side on any argument.

"You're bone structure doesn't completely change during puberty," Madam Pomfrey protested.

"What are you suggesting then? He decided to engage in some blood adoption over the last year? Why would he do that? He's looking nothing like his adoptive father, who is the only person he would do that kind of dark magic with," Snape said in a false tone of boredom, he was actually quite interested in the theory. Never was the start of term conversations so interesting.

"I don't know, but something big has happened to him over the last year," Pomona said with certainty.

Although she wasn't the strongest magic wielder out of the group, when Pomona made a statement everyone listened to her. Rarely was she wrong. But in this instance no one could truly realise how right she was.

Back at the Ravenclaw table Mateo had spent the majority of the feast in his own thoughts. Only when the dishes cleared of dessert did Mateo resurface to pay attention to the room around him. Normally the end of feast speech just recapped the rules, but Mateo had a feeling that whatever important event was going to occur would be revealed then. Albus was nothing if not addicted to dramatic reveals, and now was the best time to do one. The headmaster had stood from his seat and was smiling at the students below him and it took all of Mateo's efforts not to roll his eyes at the benevolent act.

"Welcome once more to another school year, it seems that this summer flew by," Albus started. "As usual I have a few start of term notices before we can head to our delightful beds. First off I have to remind you all, both our newest students and some of our veterans, that the Forbidden Forest is out of bounds at all times. Mr Filch, our caretaker, has a list of 437 contraband items that are banned within the grounds of the school. If you wish to see the full list it can be viewed within Mr Filches office.

"And finally I must announce that the Quidditch trials this year will not be taking place…" Albus did not get any further as the room erupted into outraged protest.

It was not just the Quidditch players that had started to shout at the man, as many of students at the school enjoyed watching the sport. It probably didn't help that most hadn't had their Quidditch fix solved by the summer event, thanks to the Death Eaters. Mateo was one of the only player amongst all 28 who remained in his seat and waited out the shouting. The ruckus took a long time to settle, and only when Albus caused an explosion noise with his wand did the room fall silent again.

"This is due to another great event that will be starting in October and continuing through the school year, taking up much of the teaching staff's time and energy. I am sure that you all will enjoy it immensely, however. I have the great pleasure in announcing that this year Hogwarts will –."

The storm outside suddenly reached a crescendo and the enchanted ceiling above seemed ready to break and unleash the chaos above. Rain and lightning slammed down towards the unsuspecting students, many of who cried out in fear and confusion.

However a sudden bolt of energy erupted from a cloaked figure who stood in a corner by the teacher's table. Even Mateo hadn't noticed his arrival through the confusion, and it seemed that even the teachers were only noticing him now due to his use of magic. Once the ceiling was calm once more the man lowered his hood and took a sip from a hipflask that he pulled from a hidden pocket.

"May I introduce you all to your newest Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Moody," Albus said to the silent room.

Moody ignored the students below him and he limped to the empty seat at the staff table and started helping himself to some food that appeared once he was seated. Apparently he hadn't been avoiding the Great Hall to avoid eating with them, although Mateo wondered what had caused him to arrive after everyone else.

"Anyway, as I was saying, Hogwarts has the great honour of hosting a great event that has not happened for three centuries. This year the Triwizard Tournament will be held at this very school!" Albus continued in an attempt to distract everyone from the dramatic arrival of their new teacher.

"You're joking!" Fred shouted back. Having been one of the loudest protesters to the cancellation of Quidditch, it was surprising to hear him speak out in almost excitement.

"I am not Mr Weasley, although I did hear a brilliant one over the holidays that involved a hag, a troll and a leprechaun… But perhaps is not the time," the headmaster said when he caught the disapproving glare of Professor McGonagall.

"For those who have not heard of the Tournament I shall explain. Every four years three school would gather and one champion of each school would compete for the glorious honour of being the Champion. Due to the lax security measures there were a number of deaths which caused the Tournament to be cancelled in 1792. However the Ministry has decided that with new strict rules and monitoring of the tasks there is no reason that the Tournament cannot be conducted in a safe manner. This will be a chance for us to socialise with other students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang along with one of you being able to compete for eternal glory."

Mateo sat there with the same thoughtful look on his face as many students, however there was no greedy gleam in his eye that was in those of some of the older students. Competing may have been fun, but Mateo rather enjoyed living and had no desire to play the game merely for a trophy at the end of it. He could see the twins whispering hurriedly and he wasn't at all surprised by their seeming determination to compete. He didn't know many facts about the Weasley family, but from his first train ride with Ron he knew that it was hard for the younger siblings to achieve any kind of success that hadn't already been done by their older brothers.

"The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their potential champions in October. The selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween by an impartial judge. I know that all of you are eager to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts however we, the heads of the schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have decided to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age – that is anyone over seventeen years of age – will be allowed to compete. This is a measure we feel is necessary to ensure the champions are suitably prepared to face the three tasks that have been organised," Albus had had to raise his voice significantly to talk over the grumbling of dissent amongst those students who were only just too young.

So with half of the students chattering loudly in excitement or anger they were excused to go to their dormitories. Those that were old enough in Ravenclaw were discussing whether they would have what it took to be chosen, and if they thought they had those qualities within them. Meanwhile those only just too young were hurriedly planning a way to try and overcome whatever measures Dumbledore was going to implement to stop them submitting their names.

"What do you think Mateo? Eternal glory and bragging rights, are you going for it?" Kevin said excitedly as they reached their room.

"As fun as it might be I doubt that whatever Dumbledore does to stop younger students competing will be fooled by anything we attempt," Mateo replied as he started pulling off his cloak and tie.

"But imagine how fun it would be!" Michael joined their conversation.

"I play Quidditch, I already have enough fun in my life," Mateo pointed out.

"Then you're going to have a very boring year with no matches," Terry countered, "it's worth trying."

"If they think that only the seventh years are skilled enough to win do you think we have a chance at learning everything they know in a few months?" argued Mateo.

"Why do you just have to suck the joy out of everything," Terry muttered. But Mateo saw the smile on his face so he knew the words were uttered in jest.

"We are Ravenclaws, I bet we could learn anything needed in time for each task," Michael piped up a few seconds later.

Mateo rolled his eyes and smiled at the group who started to eagerly discuss what the tasks could involve. If he had been within the age range to compete then he may have considered it but despite all his training Mateo knew the dangers of being overconfident. Tony's epically major mistake with Ultron had proven what could happen, and Mateo was a quick learner. So he let them discuss every wild theory they could think of, from dragons to werewolves, having to wrestle the Giant Squid to scaling the outside of the Astronomy Tower without equipment.

It was an interesting debate, and despite his determination to not get drawn into the hype Mateo did find himself being drawn into the conversation. He carried on unpacking his trunk, placing books in their places and digging his quills and parchment out. But he listened as he organised himself, and occasionally chipped in his opinions on how to defeat a certain monster.

"A Cerberus wouldn't be difficult at all to face, you just play them music and they fall asleep," Mateo pointed out.

"How do you know that? You weren't here last year for Care of Magical Creatures," Michael asked.

"I can still read though can't I?" Mateo countered.

The room snickered at that while Michael's cheeks reddened in embarrassment. However no one took it seriously and Terry was soon shouting out another obscure creature that Mateo hadn't ever heard of.

As the clock neared ten o'clock Mateo gave up with the debate and said his goodnights, before rolling into bed. A quick silencing charm gave him peace from the exciting conversation that would probably continue well into the early hours of the morning. Whatever the champions would have to face would become obvious later in the year.


	56. Chapter 56 - Fourth Year

**A/N: Hello again!**

 **I really need to buy a new laptop - the mouse buttons are completely unreliable now! I kind of broke the left one at the start of the final year of uni... so two years ago now! I got rather angry when we were supposed to be identifying bat calls and the programme kept crashing, and I took it out on the laptop. And now the right one is starting to not respond.**

 **Ah well, all the letters work, so I can still type! Here is the next chapter!**

 **Oh, and I finally watched Civil War for the first time yesterday, seeing as it is out on DVD. I'm not sure if I like it or not...**

* * *

 **Chapter Fifty Six – Fourth Year**

The stares, whispers and unsubtle jabs continued the next morning at breakfast, but Mateo was pretty sure that Draco was getting bored of not getting a response and would stop soon. After the warning glance he got yesterday Draco had at least been quieter in his insults. However with Draco taking a back seat that just left more of his attention spare to listen to the first years gossip about him.

It turned out that he was still the most interesting person in the school despite the fact he wasn't going around with his proper name. The Muggleborn first years didn't take long to fill their peers in with the tales of the Avengers, and by the evening even the eleven year olds were staring at him. It was disconcerting that he already had a reputation just as a regular student, he would hate to see how they all reacted when they might eventually learn his true identity.

Professor Flitwick's arrival with their timetables provided a useful distraction of conversations up and down the table as people remarked about their weeks. Mateo was quite glad to see that both his Fridays would be reasonably enjoyable from the lessons timetabled, and that yet again they were timetabled with the Gryffindors. It seemed to be a change that had stuck with all the years below them and there weren't many complaints that Mateo knew of about it. In fact he knew that a few of the older Gryffindor years were complaining that they were still with the Slytherins.

To Mateo returning to lessons was as odd as when he had been a first year, except now it was odd to have such a short amount of time dedicated to one subject. His missing a year of education didn't impede his education much, as although he missed the theory he knew of other ways of casting. A quick flick through the third year texts gave him a list of spells to learn, and pretty soon he could cast them as well as any of his year mates. Remembering to actually speak and to move his wand took a bit of concentration, but luckily no one seemed to notice when his spell succeeded without the right motions. He did though, and on those occasions he made sure to find some time alone to practice to ensure such slip ups didn't happen in class again.

With a bit of wrangling Mateo managed to subtly start a conversation about the last year, and the mysterious rumours of Sirius Black. By the end of the conversation half of Ravenclaw common room had started chipping in, and so the story became a bit confusing. However the gist of the tale was that Black had somehow inexplicably escaped Azkaban, sending the Wizarding World into a panic. To start with people thought he had escaped to finish what he started by killing Harry Potter, although that idea was shot down when people realised no one knew where he was. Then they thought that he had escaped to resurrect Voldemort, but Black then broke into Hogwarts and attacked Ron.

Eventually Professor Lupin had come forward and declared to the world that Peter Pettigrew had been an unregistered animagus, and that he knew he was still alive as a rat. Said rat had been caught in a trap by Lupin, McGonagall, and Dumbledore, but he had escaped when Lupin had transformed into a werewolf. Black was now a free man with all charges against him dropped, including his escape from Azkaban. Apparently he hadn't been guilty of being a Death Eater, or for killing thirteen muggles, but he had been left in Azkaban anyway. Many felt that twelve years being wrongfully detained there was already punishment enough for the man's crime of escaping.

Mateo went to bed that evening content that his small blunder had helped free an innocent man. He had never known much about Sirius Black beyond the few rumours and dark mutters, so he felt pretty neutral about the whole topic. But it was obvious that there were still many people trying to wrap their minds around the fact that the man who had been convicted and incarcerated had been innocent all along. The biggest shock had been when someone had said that Black was apparently the one who had betrayed his parents to Voldemort. If Pettigrew was still alive then Mateo decided that he should be caught, and that he would add it to his to-do list. Right after defeating Voldemort.

The only other major topic of conversation in the Ravenclaw Common Room, beyond Black and the Tournament, was the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Fred and George had waxed lyrical about their lesson's with the ex-Auror, so the fourth years were eager to see for themselves what the man was like. There were some mutterings of the new teacher being a bit unhinged, but there weren't any comments of him being incompetent which Mateo was glad about. He was hopeful of finally having a competent teacher for what could be one of their most important subjects. He couldn't comment on their last defence teacher, seeing as he hadn't officially met Lupin, but Hermione had mentioned that he had been quite a good teacher and that most people had been sad to see him go. The exceptions were unsurprisingly the Slytherins, most other students were able to overlook his lycanthropy issues.

As was customary with new professors everyone filed into the empty classroom and quietly settled down at random desks to await the arrival of the adult. The classroom had changed once more in keeping with the tastes of the ex-auror, which seemed to be darker than any of the previous men who had taught them. Whilst both Quirrell's and Lockhart's classrooms had been interestingly furnished with relevant pieces of equipment, and some horrendously bright artwork from the latter man, Moody seemed to have taken the 'Dark' aspect of the title as his inspiration. Any addition to the room seemed to have some practical use either for defence or restraint of dark wizards (Mateo was not overly keen on the cages behind the blackboard), and overall everything seemed much more focused towards practical defence rather than exploring the odd creatures of the magical world.

The arrival of the man was anything other than silent thanks to the thud of his false leg and staff on the flagstone flooring in the corridor. However it was useful in that everyone had ample warning to fall silent ahead of the man's entrance to the room. If they had learnt anything from the other student's tales it was that the man like respect, and a quiet and attentive class was something that put him in a good mood. He apparently was slightly touchy about people badmouthing his appearance so no one so much as looked disrespectfully at him as he stomped up the aisle to his desk.

"Banner," the man had grabbed a sheaf of parchment from next to the jars of unsavoury critters and started to read down the list.

"Here sir," Mateo said politely.

It was rather unnerving that whilst his normal eye remained fixed on the parchment, Professor Moody's electric blue prosthetic eye zipped around the classroom to match names to faces. Mateo couldn't help but think that the man had lingered on him slightly longer than anyone else in the class, and once again he wondered if someone suspected his true identity. As Dumbledore had been threatened into silence, and Flitwick and McGonagall were sworn to secrecy Mateo doubted that Moody had been told the truth, but it was always a worry. It helped that he had trained his hair into a side parting that left his right side of his forehead uncovered. With his bangs tucked behind his ears it was extremely obvious there was no scar and that he was therefore not Harry Potter. It still surprised him that wizards didn't understand how easy a skin graft was to complete, nor how easy it was to use it to hide in plain sight from thousands of people.

With the register concluded Moody immediately launched into explaining their lesson structure, and as they expected they would apparently be getting a much more practical education on defence from spells. What none of them expected was for them to be covering such things as the Unforgivables, and a few of them nervously raised their hands when asked if they knew of any of the spells.

"Weasley," Professor Moody barked, and Ron was not the only one to be startled by the man, despite the fact he had raised a hand. "Stand."

Ron stood very nervously, and even though Mateo could only see his back he was pretty sure that the redhead was regretting getting a seat right at the very front of the class. Dean and Seamus were shuffling nervously in their seats as if they were hoping that they would not be called upon.

"So what spell do you know?" it sounded like the man had tried to be less gruff in his speech, but he failed rather spectacularly.

"My Dad told me of one once, I think it was the Imperius curse, or something," Ron muttered.

"Ah yes, your dad would have had a lot of trouble with that little spell over the years," Moody nodded and gestured for the boy to sit again, and the speed that he did so must have been painful on his backside.

The ex-auror stomped over to his desk and gently picked up an odd insect from one of the glass containers. He increased the size of the critter to be the size of his hand and Mateo was able to final make out some of the details of the invertebrate from his spot halfway down the room. It looked like it could be a species of whip scorpion, but with two 'whips' protruding from behind its pedipalps. Mateo wouldn't be surprised if it was actually a species of whip scorpion, just the magical variety.

His interest in the exact taxonomy of the arachnid died pretty much as soon as Moody had it flying between desks and people's heads, to the amusement of some and the horror of others.

"She's a talented little thing isn't she?" Moody said in an amused and lighthearted tone. "What shall I have her do next? Jump out the window?"

The man's tone changed immediately to a harder and much less amused tone, "drown herself?"

Even though many people across the globe doubted the intelligence of smaller animals, it was impossible to deny that the arachnid was obviously fighting desperately to not fall into the bucket of water standing on the windowsill. Mateo let out a silent sigh of relief as the man guided the insect back to the palm of his hand and released it from the spell.

"Scores of witches, and wizards, have claimed that they only did You-Know-Who's bidding because they were under the influence of the Imperius Curse. But here's the rub, how do we sort out the liars?" said Moody somberly, and he gave them a few seconds to think on that before progressing. "Another?"

Mateo was surprised that Neville gingerly raised his hand, the youth rarely offered any answers in any subject other than Herbology, where he would often outstrip Hermione at the speed that his hand went up.

"Longbottom, is it?" Moody asked a he gestured for Neville to stand. "Professor Sprout tells me you have an aptitude for Herbology."

The statement was rather off topic, but Mateo was glad that the man gave Neville the little nudge he needed to stand up straight with a slight bit of pride.

"The-there's the um, the Cruciatus Curse," Neville stammered a bit but managed to finish the sentence loud enough for them all to hear.

"Correct! Come, come," Moody gestured with his wand until Neville reluctantly left his spot and walked to the professor's desk.

Mateo had managed to get a glimpse of Neville's face before he had walked forward, and reluctantly was probably too neutral a word, he looked closer to terrified. But surprisingly _not_ of being called out by Moody which is what he had initially assumed.

 _"Crucio,"_ Moody snarled as he pointed his wand at the tailless whip scorpion.

Mateo equally surprised and horrified at the spectacle unfolding in front of him. For one he was surprised that arachnids could scream, it was extremely shrill and more like the sound of a squeaky wheel on a trolley, but the tortured invertebrate was definitely releasing a high pitched sound. But most of all he felt horrified that even a pretty unintelligent beast was being tortured in front of them. And what was worse was that Neville seemed even more affected by it.

"Stop it! Can't you see it's bothering him? Stop it!" Hermione shouted, her interruption coming just a second before Mateo was about to open his mouth.

Moody at least had the decency to look guilty at causing Neville untold amounts of psychological harm, but did not seem likely to sprout an apology any time soon. Instead he did what most adults seemed to do with emotional teenagers and ignored the problem in preference, in this case, for continuing the lesson.

He walked, surprisingly quietly Mateo noted, to Hermione's desk and deposited the trembling arachnid on her book.

"Perhaps you could give us the last unforgivable curse, Miss Granger?" Moody asked solemnly.

Hermione looked close to tears and slowly darted her eyes up to her professor's before shaking her head, unable to speak.

"No?" Moody looked at Hermione who was adamantly keeping her eyes pointing to the front of the class. " _Avada kedavra._ "

A flash of green light struck the insect and it immediately collapsed in on itself as it's legs failed to continue to support it in death.

Mateo fought to show any emotion beyond the same horrified looks around him, whilst his mind was racing at a thousand miles a minute. He had just seen how quickly and cleanly his parents had been murdered, and whilst he was glad that it had been a painless death he was also incredibly angry. Sure, Moody had just killed an insect and anyone could do that every time they stepped outside. However what of the people that willingly used that curse against another human? There would be no way of stopping that spell, how depraved did you have to be to calmly cast it and carry on with your life without a second thought? And Moody had just shown exactly how to cast each spell to a group of fourth years.

"The Killing Curse, only one person has been known to have survived it. And he is your age," Moody stomped back up to the front of the class, but Mateo could still feel the gaze of his magical eye pinned on him.

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Neville had taken on the opinion that Defence was now his least favourite subject, which was impressive as it had managed to beat Potions for that title. None of them pried as to why he had had such a violent reaction to the practical demonstration of the unforgivable spells, but Mateo privately wandered whether there was some relation between the curse and his absent parents.

However their Gryffindor friend felt about the event he was able to shrug off his gloom reasonably quickly and was pretty much back to normal after the weekend. Defence remained quite cautiously viewed by a number of students, and if the rumours were to be believed then there were more than a few first years having nightmares about the grizzled ex-auror.

The fourth year's lessons with the man improved in the sense that they weren't forced to watch insects be tortured or killed, but they were less than thrilled to learn that Dumbledore had given his permission for them to experience the Imperius Curse. Some people started cartwheeling, others tap-dancing, while a few sang opera, and none of them managed to throw off the curse. Mateo was constantly worrying how he was going to react to the spell, he wasn't sure how it would react to Loki's magic in him. What if it had no effect at all? He didn't want to stand out by not being affected.

Luckily it seemed that there was a pretty standard way of being manipulated by the curse, and he felt that he could mimic the facial expressions of everyone else who had gone before him.

"Banner."

Mateo was slightly caught unawares by the sudden announcement of his name but he quickly covered it and walked into the open space and faced the professor. With no more of a warning than the flick of his wand Moody sent the spell at Mateo before waiting to see the results.

 _"Jump onto the desk."_

The quiet whisper in his ear sounded so reasonably that Mateo found himself bending his knees and getting ready to spring before he could register that he had moved. Rather than attempt to fight the curse he decided to agree to follow it for a short while and see where it lead, just to see what it was like. So Mateo did as he was bid and leapt easily up onto the desk and carefully made sure he didn't upset any of the glass jars.

 _"Pull a handstand,"_ the voice asked of him once again.

It definitely couldn't be defined as an order but more of a suggestion, yet Mateo felt compelled to do as he was asked. Overall it was a very disconcerting experience and one that Mateo was surprised that not many could fight against. And seeing as the requests were starting to get into the realms of potentially dangerous Mateo decided that he would start trying to break the spell. However he obediently and carefully rearranged himself so that he was balanced on his hands, before he pushed and was wobbling on one hand alone.

 _"Now flip off and start doing the can-can."_

Mateo finally decided that enough was enough, he wasn't having himself be made a fool of by a sadistic teacher. Fighting the spell though was a lot more difficult than he imagined, which shouldn't have been surprising. In the end he had to imagine himself physically breaking a corporeal bond between him and Moody in order to break the spell. It roughly followed Loki's teachings on intent dictating power, so he was unsurprised when his desperate attempt worked. What he was surprised about was the sudden collision of his head with the desk. By the time he managed to break the spell he had already started to push off to flip from the desk, which resulted in him half trying to flip off the desk and half restraining himself.

The resulting explosion of stars behind his eyes and pain erupting from his head told Mateo that he had managed to throw off the spell. However he was pretty sure that how he had managed it had not been pretty.

"Mateo, are you alright?" He thought he could hear Hermione talking.

"Pretty sure I'm going to at least have concussion from that," he groaned and gingerly opened his eyes.

"You need to go to the Hospital Wing," Kevin said.

"I'll be alright, just give me a minute to get up," Mateo said as the room span faintly and he tried to get on top of the pain.

"Mate, you're bleeding quite badly," his Ravenclaw friend pointed out. "I won't be surprised if you cracked your skull doing that stunt."

"Alright Kevin. Professor, may I be excused to go to the Hospital Wing?" Mateo sighed and relented.

"Granger and Entwhistle, you take him. The rest of you it's close enough to the end of the lesson so you can go. I need to clean up," Moody ordered as his magical eye stared at the smear of blood on the edge of his desk, and the small puddle on the floor.

No one argued and whilst Hermione grabbed their bags Kevin forced himself under Mateo's shoulder and helped steer him to the medical room. Madam Pomfrey was less than happy to see them but set to her craft quickly so Mateo was no longer bleeding. Despite his protests the healer wanted to keep him in for the rest of the day, but Mateo managed to wrangle it so that he was signed off for the rest of the day and instead could rest in his dormitory.

"I thought you couldn't sleep with concussion?" Hermione asked.

"Normally you can't in the muggle world, but I'm pretty sure Madam Pomfrey will give me some kind of healing potion to ensure there is no aneurysm and that I'm fine to sleep," Mateo said thoughtfully.

"Correct Mr Banner," the aforementioned woman appeared with a vial containing a blueish potion in hand. "There seems to be little actual damage beyond the scalp cut you sustained. However you will need to rest, so no Quidditch practice today or homework."

"Understood ma'am," Mateo smiled his thanks and carefully slipped off the bed.

He downed the potion before he left the Hospital Wing, leaving Madam Pomfrey with the empty vial, and headed to his bed still absentmindedly rubbing his head ruefully.

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The term started to fly by once Moody had gotten a reprimand and stopped casting spells on the students. After that the defence lessons were still dark and hardly enjoyable, but people at least didn't dread them anymore. By the time the middle of October rolled around, six weeks of lessons had helped them to get used to the psychotic ex-auror and back into the flow of all the other lessons.

The year out had impacted Mateo more than he expected, and he had dropped position from top of his year to barely making the top five. But his friends helped where they could, especially in the new electives that he had missed a year of. Care of Magical Creatures was easy, reading the book assigned by Hagrid was enough to get him up to the same level as the others in theory. Although he had less practical knowledge in the care side of things Mateo wasn't far behind the others who had already studied a year of the subject.

Ancient Runes was another matter, the material they were studying relied on the year of groundwork that Mateo had missed. However Hermione stuck by his side and helped him with his extra study in the evenings. In class she wrote him notes with hints when he got completely lost.

An announcement posted on every noticeboard in every common room alerted them to the arrival of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students at the end of the week. In addition to passing on the information was the request that everyone dressed in their smartest robes for the welcoming feast that would be held in their guests' honour. Mateo wasn't entirely sure how much neater they could present themselves from their normal day to day attire, but he polished his boots and ensured that his hair was well brushed and styled. He joined the throng of Ravenclaw students as they all headed down to the Great Hall together. It seemed that the formation had been planned by the Prefects and seventh years who pulled people out of line before they even left the common room in order for them to correct some issue in attire.

By the time the ravens arrived from their lofty tower the Slytherin and Hufflepuff students had already taken their seats, although the majority of the Gryffindor table was still empty. Mateo was pretty sure the tables had been extended some length as there seemed to be even more room than usual for them to spread out on. If possible it seemed that the aisle between the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor table had been increased too, as if to allow more people passage at once.

In no time at all the last of the students arrived and all the teachers had assembled in their respective seats at the head of the room. Dumbledore stood in front of the staff table and clapped to get everyone's attention, and it was testament to how excited everyone was that silence fell immediately.

"If you will join me in welcoming the lovely ladies from the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, and their Headmistress Madame Maxime," Dumbledore said loudly.

He had barely finished talking when the doors to the Great Hall swung open and in strode about thirty tall and beautiful women. It seemed that Beauxbatons was likely located somewhere south of England as their uniforms looked to be made of light blue silk that flowed with their elegant movements. The shoulder capes and uniquely designed hats made the potentially boring blue dresses into much more interesting uniforms. As they processed down the room they occasionally stopped and moved as one in a weird kind of curtsey that released clouds of blue butterflies. Two acrobats flipped down the room and tumbled before the head table, whilst a towering figure strode at the back of the group. Dumbledore beamed at the newcomers and hurried to take the hand of Madame Maxime in greeting.

The entirety of the Hogwarts cohort clapped politely, although some were wildly more enthusiastic than others, before the Beauxbaton women quickly hurried to the sides of the hall. Dumbledore hopped back up the steps and waved for silence once more.

"And now our friends from the north, please greet the proud sons of Durmstrang and their Highmaster Igor Karkaroff!"

Where the Beauxbaton students had been graceful and charming in their entrance, the Durmstrang men seemed to want to prove their strength. The forerunners strode down the Great Hall clashing staffs against the flagstone flooring, causing sparks to fly. After halting and displaying some impressive staff twirling the majority of the men ran forward to form a line at the front. One athletic man started twirling acrobatically whilst another two created flames from their wands that intertwined into a phoenix.

Finally two figures strode importantly up to the other assembled students, one dressed in white furs whilst the other was in clothing that matched the other students.

"I don't believe it, that's _Viktor Krum_!" Mateo could hear Ron's unsubtle mutter from halfway across the room.

"Krum?" He asked the table, not minding who answered.

"The number one Quidditch seeker in the world, he was at the Quidditch World Cup. Not many people make the connection that he is still a student," a seventh year up the table replied.

Once they had properly welcomed the second school Albus gestured for the newcomers to sit where they wanted before escorting the two new heads to the staff table. Once everyone was seated, the Durmstrang students had dispersed amongst the Slytherins and the Beauxbaton's amongst the Ravenclaws, Dumbledore gestured once more and the feast was started.

Mateo was not the only one to spend time inspecting the many unfamiliar dishes prepared for the feast, and even the Beauxbaton students near them seemed to be unsure of a couple of the dishes. Not one to pass up an experience Mateo served himself a bit of many of the new dishes and tried them all. The Russian dishes may have been heavy on the salts and vinegar but were still quite palatable in Mateo's opinion. He was quite surprised that he enjoyed some of the stranger French dishes, although he would never try escargot again.

"Excuse me, can you pass ze bouillabaisse?" Mateo was startled when a Beauxbaton student a few seats down from him tried to catch his attention.

"Sorry which dish?" he asked politely.

"Ze fish stew," the girl gestured to Mateo's right.

"Ah I wondered what it was called, I was going to try and cook it the next time I go home," Mateo smiled and passed it over.

"You liked it?" Kevin said in surprise.

"What's not to like? I haven't tried mussels before tonight but they are good," Mateo shrugged.

"Not many English seem to like our food," the woman served herself a portion before handing the dish back.

"I've eaten some much weirder food items in my life than snails and shellfish," Mateo laughed as he saw a few of the first years daring each other to try the escargot.

"You travel a lot zen?" the woman seemed interested.

"I did a lot as a child with my father, but not so much now that I have school," Mateo omitted the fact that Bruce was probably going on alone without him now.

"Did you not visit France?"

"We stuck to the poorer countries, my dad was a travelling doctor so we tried to go where his help would be most needed," he explained.

"Zat sounds exciting!" Mateo smiled at her seeming attraction to adventure.

"It certainly was interesting. I'm sorry I don't know your name," Mateo said, deciding that if they were to be talking for a while it would be rude to continue unintroduced.

"Fleur Delacour," Fleur offered her hand. "And zis is my sister Gabrielle."

"Mateo Banner," they shook hands and Mateo smiled encouragingly to the rather pretty but incredibly shy girl next to Fleur, causing her to bury her head in her older sister's robes. "Sorry."

"It's alright, it is nice to talk to someone who doesn't seem, er, simple?" Fleur said hesitantly in a change of topic and gestured over her shoulder where a number of Gryffindor's were still staring wide-eyed at the Beauxbaton students.

"Ah yes, well you should know how shocking it can be to have something new around," Mateo tried to explain. "I apologise for their lack of subtlety at looking at the rather delightful new distractions."

"You seem fine with new _distractions_ ," Fleur raised an eyebrow at him.

"I've had quite an exciting life already, I'm quite at ease with new things," Mateo shrugged.

They continued to chat about the differences in culture and mannerisms in France and England for quite a while, and it was only as the dishes emptied that they realised how long they had talked together. Mateo hadn't even registered the arrival of two new adults at the staff table, although he guessed they had used a side door rather than walking straight down the hall. Both looked quite official but one was certainly more composed than the other who seemed to radiate as much excitement as any student.

Mateo only half paid attention to the following spiel about excitement and glory that Albus said, he would not be able to enter so there was no point in getting excited about the prospect. He then tapped a huge ornate casket that had been placed in front of his spot at the head table. At his touch the sides melted away to reveal a rather boring looking cup, seemingly carved of wood and big enough that even Hagrid would have gotten drunk drinking wine from it. However what made it interesting were the blue flames that danced from it.

Mr Crouch, one of the newcomers and apparently a big deal in the Ministry, then said a quick bit about the terms and conditions, like a verbal recitation of the page that everyone ignores when signing up to something. Finally Dumbledore warned them that they had until the following evening to submit their names for the goblet to decide who would compete, before they were allowed to leave for the evening.

"Where are you all staying Fleur?" Mateo asked as they stood to leave.

"Our carriage has ample room for all of us, I assume the Durmstrang students are sleeping in their ship too," Fleur replied.

"I hope you sleep well then. Oh and good luck entering your name," Mateo offered.

"And ze same to you," Fleur returned.

"Oh I'm not allowed to enter the competition, I'm only a fourth year," Mateo said quickly.

"I thought you were a little young looking," Fleur inspected him a bit. "Are you not tempted to try to fool ze spell Dumbledore will cast?"

"Not at all, I rather like my limbs where they are," Mateo chuckled before bidding her goodnight.

"Get in there mate!" Terry punched his shoulder as they walked up to their common room.

"Oh come on guys I was just being friendly, why did you have to go and ruin it," Mateo groaned.

"Because she is stunning, why don't you try your luck?" Michael asked.

"I'm not interested," Mateo stated shortly.

"Oh, well there are quite a few handsome guys amongst the Durmstrang lot. Krum isn't much of a looker but he is rich," Terry suggested.

"What? No, I'm straight I'm just not interested in chasing after a woman right now," Mateo said defensively.

"Remember his godfather is a billionaire, he can probably get any drop-dead girl in America that he wants," Kevin pointed out.

"I am _so_ leaving this conversation," Mateo shook his head and increased his speed until he left his friends far behind while they laughed at his behaviour.

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Having classes the next day was both a relief and an aggravation to Mateo as everyone seemed to be distracted by the goings on with the Triwizard tournament submissions. Apparently a number of students only just too young to legally submit their names had attempted to get past Dumbledore's age line, and now were sitting in the Hospital Wing sporting beards. Mateo only shook his head and chuckled when he heard that the twins had been amongst those needing a shave.

Defence was as gruelling as ever, Moody seemed determined to push them as hard as possible to get their practical defence up to scratch. None of the fourth years dared to protest, mostly because the man was terrifying but also because after two years of sub-par teaching they knew they needed pushing.

Finally the evening rolled around once more and everyone assembled in the Great Hall once more. The tension was so thick in the air Mateo could imagine you could strike a match and set fire to it. Pretty much every seventh year Hogwarts student had submitted their name if the rumours were true, and so there were over one hundred students wearing the same pale yet alert looks as they stared impatiently at the innocent looking goblet.

"In a few minutes the goblet will have finished making its decisions and the three champions will be announced!" Albus said, and it seemed that even he could barely maintain a demurred front. "When I announce the champions would they please make their way to the front of the room and head through those doors there. Once the three have been chosen they shall be given their instructions about the first task."

Dumbledore finished speaking and turned expectantly to the goblet, the eyes of everyone in the room following his example. It was almost a relief when the goblet's flames grew in height before one tongue shot high into the air, bearing a piece of parchment.

"The Durmstrang champion shall be Viktor Krum!" Dumbledore announced in a loud voice.

Although the other brown clad students seemed slightly disappointed in losing they joined in with the other two schools in cheering their lucky friend. Karkaroff was shouting his pleasure loud enough for everyone to hear, and Mateo had to force himself not to roll his eyes. It was unbelievably obvious that the Durmstrang Headmaster was determined to show off his prized student.

"The champion for Beauxbatons is Fleur Delacour!"

Mateo was rather more enthusiastic in cheering for his friend as she jumped up from her seat and strode up to the head table. Madame Maxime was smiling broadly as her student floated through the door into the chamber beyond.

With only the host school left almost every black clad student found themselves leaning forward in anticipation. When Cedric Diggory was announced to represent them there was obviously a mixture of emotions unleashed. Some, like Mateo, were glad that it had not been a Slytherin chosen as their champion whilst others were annoyed that it was a Hufflepuff announced. Mateo guessed that they were worried that a badger would not be brave or smart enough to beat the other two schools, but Mateo was pretty sure that the goblet did more than randomly select a name. Cedric would probably do a good job of representing their school.

"Excellent! We now have our three champions, but in the end only one will go down in history. Only one will hoist this chalice of champions, this vessel of victory… The Triwizard Cup!"

Albus turned and pointed at a covered item that had been placed on the staff table behind him, causing the cloth to whip off magically. Revealed was an ornate glass cut cup with silver handles and base, illuminated from within by a blue light. Mateo had to admit, it looked impressive.

Whilst everyone cheered and eagerly chattered about the forthcoming tournament Mateo spotted Professor Snape advancing towards the headmaster with a wary expression on his face. The American followed his line of sight and realised that Snape wasn't staring at Dumbledore but rather at the goblet, which had started to spurt flames as if agitated.

By now everyone had caught on and Albus carefully approached the goblet, obviously unsure of what was going on. They were given an answer soon enough when the flames turned red and spat out a fourth piece of parchment. Almost reflexively Dumbledore shot out a hand and caught the paper and gingerly inspected it for a name.

"Harry Potter."


	57. Chapter 57 - Nowhere to Hide

**A/N: Afternoon folks! So it's been a week since I last updated... yes? Hope everyone's been good since then! It looks like most people are enjoying the story so far, so thanks for the reviews letting me know! Some people have pointed out a couple of goofs I've made, I'll go back and fix that, and again thanks for the heads up**

 **My sister and I have booked a holiday! First one this year! We're going away to Wales again at the beginning of November, then the week after I'll be heading off on a course about egg incubation.**

 **As always, I'm incredibly grateful for all reviews, favourites, and follows!**

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 **Chapter Fifty Seven – Nowhere to Hide**

"Harry Potter!" Dumbledore shouted, almost in surprise and anger.

The students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons looked around curiously as if trying to find the famous wizard that they had not been introduced to. However the Hogwarts students merely looked confused and a few chuckled as if it was a joke. Meanwhile Mateo was sitting at the Ravenclaw table and trying to blend in with the rest of the student body. Luckily quite a few of the Ravenclaws were sitting silently, patiently waiting for the confusion to blow over. He was shocked into silence that someone had entered his name into the goblet, but he managed to look as curious and confused as his friends.

Had someone done this as a joke, or did they actually know who he was?

The teachers at the head table were squabbling furiously with each other, and the unease spread to the students and they too began to talk uneasily. The noise grew until there were a few rather loud conversations going on, and some students started shouting over each other. Mateo was glad that his friends were sitting in silence like him as he really could not muster the ability to pretend to be curious right now.

A loud bang from the front of the hall had a few students screaming in surprise, before everyone fell silent. Mateo glanced forward and saw that it was Dumbledore who had created the sound, although it was Crouch who stood to speak. "The contract is binding, once a name has been submitted to the goblet that person _must_ compete should they be named a champion. As irregular as this instance is, Harry Potter is legally obliged to compete or face the consequences."

"Harry Potter, please head through the door," Dumbledore said gravely.

Mateo was glad that he managed to catch the eye of his Headmaster at that moment without it being obvious that they were staring at each other. He could see that the older man had been just as in the dark as he was, and this change in events seemed to worry him.

"What's the punishment of not honouring a magical contract?" Mateo asked conversationally.

"Depends on the kind of contract, but the one binding the champions is probably pretty severe so it could even be death. At the least it would likely be the loss of one's magic," a sixth year nearby muttered.

At that information Mateo sighed and knew his fate was sealed. He could not remain in his seat and lose his magic or life just for the sake of his anonymity. He wasn't sure if the contract would affect Loki's brand of magic, but he couldn't afford to risk it. It would be pretty obvious who he was once he couldn't cast a spell or fell down dead, and either outcome would leave the Wizarding world defenceless from Voldemort.

He stood and quickly started to head down the hall before his friends registered that he had moved and could stop him. The shouts of surprise and confusion started before he got two metres from his seat, and by the time he reached the head table the hall was in an uproar. Even the teachers looked shocked at the revelation and no one moved to try and stop him for an answer.

Mateo was surprised that none of them had ever seriously considered the possibility that he was actually a Potter. But then from what he had heard of his parents he was nothing like them in personality and he only had his mother's eyes and his father's black hair. And they all probably believed Dumbledore's story that he was training in private. It didn't help he didn't look like the gangly bespectacled short teen that some books depicted him as, and Mateo had no idea why people thought that he would look like that.

On his way to the antechamber Mateo mostly ignored those he passed, their reactions were likely predictable and he didn't need to see their shocked/surprised/confused/angry faces. The only two people that Mateo cared to specifically look for in the entire room were thankfully acting just like every other adult next to them and had shocked and confused looks on their faces. He didn't give any outward sign of acknowledging them but Mateo made sure to make eye contact with McGonagall and Flitwick in the hope of conveying his relief that they were staying in character.

The slamming shut of the doors behind him was an immense relief to Mateo as it shut out the shouting coming from the Great Hall, and also the stares drilling into the back of his head. Mateo found himself at the top of a flight of stairs, so he headed down them and wandered into the trophy room. He spotted the other three champions standing by the fireplace in awkward comradeship and Mateo decided immediately that he did not want to approach them and try to explain everything. However his entrance into the room had gained their attention.

"What is it Mateo, do zey want us back in ze hall?" Fleur asked.

Before Mateo had the chance to try and speak the door above slammed open and a whole host of people poured into the room. The sight of Dumbledore storming towards him with a frightening look on his face caused the already rather wired Mateo to go into flight-or-fight mode. He whipped out his wand and backed up so that his back was to a wall and stood there looking very much like a deer caught in the headlights.

Thankfully the adults figured out exactly what had caused the reaction and paused far enough away that Mateo did not feel threatened. He rather self-consciously put his wand back in his holster but did not relax his tense posture.

"What is going on here?" Viktor demanded.

"I think we would all like to know that Dumbledore," Karkaroff said coldly as he went to stand by his champion.

"Harry, did you put your name in the goblet of fire?" Albus turned and stared at the named boy.

"No I didn't, why on earth would I want to do that?" Mateo said firmly.

"Harry, but his name is Mateo?" Fleur could be heard saying.

Mateo took a deep breath and psyched himself up to give a brief, and slightly doctored answer. "I was born Harry Potter but I have not gone by that name for almost a decade. After Voldemort killed my parents I lived with muggle relatives until I ran away at the age of six. My adoptive father, Bruce Banner, took me in and I have been Mateo Banner since then."

"You knew?" McGonagall asked Albus, with enough surprise in her voice and a look of betrayal on her face that made her look completely like she had been caught unawares.

"He asked me to keep his identity secret," Dumbledore was unable to meet her stern gaze.

"I didn't know anything about who I was or my apparent significance in the Wizarding World until Dumbledore found me to give me my letter. I care nothing for your apparent hero worship of a toddler that got lucky, I just wanted to learn magic in peace and not be hounded constantly. So I said that I would only come to Hogwarts if I could come as I truly was and not have to parade around as Harry bloody Potter," Mateo explained.

"The cat's out of the bag now though, and in a rather spectacular way too," Cedric interjected.

"Well I certainly didn't enter my name, I was quite content to have a quiet year and cheer on whoever was the Hogwarts champion," Mateo said honestly.

"Are we supposed to believe you?" Madame Maxine said suspiciously.

"I agree it is highly suspect, there's no greater way of showing up our schools by suddenly revealing you have Harry Potter attending, and competing," Karkaroff said in an accusatory tone, his gaze flitting between Dumbledore and Mateo.

"Oh for goodness sake," Mateo muttered and reached for his wand and pulled it out once more. "I swear on my magic and my life that I, Mateo Banner, did not enter my true name of Harry Potter into the goblet of fire."

The resulting glitter of white magic proved once and for all to the doubters in the room that he was telling the truth. He put his wand away again and was glad to feel that the hostility in the room had dialled back a notch. Pretty much everyone was still staring at him in surprise or suspicion but at least no one was looking like they were about to try to interrogate him for answers.

"So how did his name make its way into the goblet?" Professor Flitwick brought up the question.

"More importantly who knew who I was in order to submit it, and why?" Mateo pointed out. "I can't help but feel that whoever orchestrated this went to a _lot_ of effort just to reveal who I truly am."

"We shall try to get to the bottom of this when we can, but for now you should concentrate on coping with the tournament, Mr Potter," Flitwick said reassuringly.

"Banner please, it is who I truly am and not some hero that the public are besotted with," Mateo almost begged.

McGonagall, Flitwick and Dumbledore nodded in agreement, and whilst Snape's face was as unreadable as ever he too eventually nodded. The other adults, who had thankfully kept out of the exchange, made no similar motion but they at least kept their silence on the matter.

Bagman took the opportunity to step forward and started to outline how the tournament would proceed, and the rough dates for the three tasks were given. The other three champions seemed glad of a distraction, and listened intently to the words coming from Bagman's mouth. Their moment of glory had been interrupted and they were desperate to focus on what they had volunteered for. Learning about Harry Potter could wait, it was less important than eternal glory.

Finally, an hour after Mateo had entered the chamber, the champions had been given their instructions and were allowed to leave for the night. The professors all left in a group, presumably to discuss at length how someone discovered Mateo's secret. Fleur gave Mateo an encouraging smile before she left with Maxime, both chattering in rapid and animated French. Krum and Karkaroff swept off in silence, neither of them giving Mateo a second glance as they walked past him. Mateo sighed and started heading out of the room, but a movement near the fire almost had him jumping out of his skin.

"Sorry I thought you'd realised I was still here," Cedric apologised.

"I should have but it turns out my mind is a bit scrambled to pay attention to numbers," Mateo pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sorry about all this."

"What are you apologising for?" Cedric looked at the younger student in confusion.

"This should have been your moment of glory, your chance to have the entire school cheering your name. And now you can bet your bottom dollar, or knut, that half of the student populace is going to be more interested in talking about who I am instead," Mateo sighed.

"True, but it isn't your fault as you didn't put your name in the goblet and you didn't want this to happen. So you can't blame yourself," Cedric reasoned.

"It's just my luck, I should have turned this down and just stayed being a muggle," Mateo said bitterly.

"Why didn't you then?" Cedric truly looked interested in the reason.

Mateo hesitated for a while before deciding to be honest. "Because Voldemort isn't really dead and there is a stupid prophecy that I am the only one with the power to kill him. So I could either train and save everyone from the nutjob or stay a muggle and leave you all to your fate. Bar a few Slytherins that I could happily murder myself I couldn't in all could consciousness choose the second option."

"You should have been a Gryffindor, facing that choice when you were eleven," Cedric said with wide eyes.

"I argued with the Sorting Hat to put me in Ravenclaw, it was easier to argue my ignorance of being Potter if I wasn't anything like how people expected," Mateo explained.

"Well you would have done an impressive job if someone hadn't turned you in," Cedric commiserated him. "Come on, we should head back to our dormitories."

"Oh joy," Mateo groaned but followed the other youth.

They left the room in silence and Mateo was left to mull over the enormity of the challenges ahead of him. Even if he had a good grasp of magic and probably as much power as the other seventh years, he would still have to learn all the spells they had already encountered plus any more specialist ones needed for the tasks. Added to that the other three had more experience and therefore were likely more confident with magic than him. He was going to be at a disadvantage the entire time.

"Look, if you want any help then don't hesitate to come and ask me," Cedric's offer jolted Mateo out of his thoughts.

"What about that whole 'each champion must stand alone' speech Dumbledore made?"

"Well a win is a win for Hogwarts, and I didn't just mean with the tournament," Cedric looked around to ensure they were alone before he carried on. "If You-Know-Who really is going to come back then it can't be too far away, if the Quidditch World Cup is anything to go by. I was there with my dad, but luckily we were camped away from the violence. The screams and fires were bad enough from where we were, and war won't be any prettier. I can't imagine what it is like having to be in your position but I know I would want as many people as possible helping me when the time comes. So just say the word and I'll do whatever I can to help."

"There is something," Mateo hesitated and double checked their surroundings. "Some friends and I have an idea that we are putting together that might go ahead this year. We were intending to train, to be ready for war in the future, and if you want you can join us. Even if you are already brilliant and duelling we could probably use the help with learning new spells."

"You really are prepared, aren't you? Alright I'm in," Cedric put his hand out.

"Thank you Cedric. Truly, you have no idea how much this means," Mateo grinned happily, at least feeling better that he wasn't causing a rift in the school.

"Us Hogwarts students have to stick together. See you later Mateo," Cedric returned the smile before heading off on his own to his common room.

The smile stayed on Mateo's face until he got all the way to the door knocker of Ravenclaw tower. For once the riddle was something completely random and not related to the mood he was in and Mateo stepped through the door to find the _entire_ Ravenclaw house waiting in the common room. It was unsurprising seeing as it was a Saturday the next day and no one had to get up early, however Mateo really wished he could have avoided such a largescale confrontation.

"Err, hi everyone," he said in opening.

"So what in Merlin's name was that back there? Are you really Harry Potter?" Duncan asked the question that everyone had been turning over since Mateo had disappeared from the Great Hall.

"Yeah I can imagine that is the question everyone wants answering," Mateo took a deep breath before projecting his voice well enough for everyone to hear.

He gave the same answer to them as the adults earlier, although he carried on and covered his travels and going to America. Whilst he was at it he stopped people asking questions and explained about the war that was to come and that it was his fate to face Voldemort. He did not reveal the prophecy or his training out of school term but made sure they knew exactly he did not want the fame or the attention. Mateo was immensely grateful when they let him pass after that to retire to bed, although he imagined they would be happily talking about him behind his back. Even though when they too came up to bed his dormitory mates seemed to look at him with confusion they did not press him for more details that night.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Hermione was still surprised that at almost four years into their friendship Mateo's behaviour could still surprise her. Her friend had almost talked them into letting him hole up in their common room all day to avoid facing the rest of the school, which was incredibly cowardly of him. She had eventually won the argument and forced him to go to breakfast. It had taken some good negotiating skills on her part, but eventually Mateo had agreed to her promises. So, surrounded by every fourth year Ravenclaw, Mateo felt relatively safe from harassment. Only an idiot would try and pick a fight with 12 of them, they may only be fourth years but they were all in the upper quartile of their year.

But what most surprised Hermione about Mateo was his way of changing himself so completely. She had had to go and coax him his seat by the large window by his bed, which apparently had become his favourite thinking spot according to Kevin. On his own he sat huddled in quite a tight ball, his arms wrapped around his body. Hermione couldn't help but compare the image to a small child, lost and confused and seeking any kind of comfort. Even as they left the room he was hunched over, as if trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. But as soon as he reached the parts of the school that were much more likely to be inhabited he changed. He seemed to get a hold of his worry and shrugged it off before straightening his spine and raising his head so that he walked tall once more. The lost child was once more buried under layers of self control and years of practice, and Hermione almost doubted that she had ever seen him at all. With his always smart appearance and the usual calculating but friendly gaze, Mateo once more looked attentive and ready for anything.

"Are you alright there Hermione?" his voice startled her out of her thoughts.

"Sorry I was just thinking, I've just noticed how much you change in different situations. Like you wouldn't let anyone outside of the common room see you looking worried. And right now you are pulling your practically cocky walk right now," Hermione explained.

"I only let those I trust see how I really feel," Mateo shrugged. "It's something I picked up as a kid and from Tony, you have different faces for different occasions. If people don't know how you feel then they cannot exploit that."

"That's a very cold and detached way to view interactions," Su said softly.

"Tony is used to dealing with the sharks in the media so he learnt to put on a fake smile even when he wanted to deck them. I learnt to not show emotion around my relatives, they didn't like me being happy," Mateo said shortly. "Today is just another day where I bury them for safety."

There was more than one of the group that were glad when they reached the Great Hall and there was a valid reason for their conversation being interrupted.

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Due to his dithering earlier they had arrived to breakfast with the meal well under way, which meant pretty much everyone was present to see him walk in. The whole hall went dead as they realised who had arrived, and Mateo was once again subjected to hundreds of stares. He was very aware that his confident exterior was very close to cracking as he stared back at the hall. Over half of the Hogwarts students were glaring at him and the rest were hardly sending him welcoming looks. The whole lot of them carried on forwards to their usual spot at the Ravenclaw table and sat down in unison. If he wasn't feeling like an ant under a microscope Mateo would have found their synchronisation amusing.

He focussed on ignoring the stares and whispers and grabbed some toast and butter, not fancying anything else more elaborate for breakfast. He had just reached for some honey when a disturbance across the hall caught his attention, Cedric had stood from his friends and was walking towards the Ravenclaw table. He saw Kevin start to rise but he gently shook his head and the boy sat down again.

"Do you mind if I join you?" Cedric asked.

"Not at all," Mateo shuffled to one side to make room for the other Hogwarts champion.

Neville arrived shortly after the Hufflepuff and his glance at Mateo made it obvious that he wanted to talk. However he didn't push the matter and instead he turned to make polite if hesitant conversation with Cedric, seeing as he too seemed to have joined their group.

"So is Cedric being adopted into the group too?" Hermione asked.

"If he wants to be," Mateo turned to look at the older youth. "Cedric, do you fancy being an honorary Ravenclaw? The perks include getting to eat with us in the mornings if you wish, as well as access to our knowledge base."

Cedric chuckled at their antics and the sincerity of the offer. "I think I may pass on the access to the knowledge but I think it would be fun to be an honorary Ravenclaw."

"Good!" Mateo raised his goblet of tea in a mock toast.

"You know I didn't think that the ravens had a sense of humour, pretty much everyone thinks you spend too much time reading and working to have fun," Cedric revealed.

"It's amusing to keep people on the back foot," Mateo chuckled, "plus they might not get our type of humour so assume we are never joking."

The Ravenclaws around him nodded sagely in agreement at the joke before they broke out into snickering. After that the mood lightened slightly as the mixed group relaxed around Cedric. Whilst the conversations were quite boisterous Mateo managed to whisper a message to Kevin sitting next to him without raising the suspicions of those around them. Cedric glanced at him but carried on talking to Hermione across the table and refrained from commenting.

Their fast breaking had been going on without much notice of the other happenings in the hall. All of them had become immune to the flurry of owls that brought the post a month into their first year. So now none of them paid much attention to the almost silent maelstrom of feathers tumbling about above them. Today would have been like any other day, except there was one bird unlike the others in the mix.

The dry rustling of feathers was interrupted by the purposeful flapping of another bird. A slate grey bird with a barred white chest was skilfully dodging between the slowly circling owls. Whilst the latter were only flapping when necessary and taking long lazy circuits of the hall, the former was actively zipping around into gaps. As it shot overhead Mateo noted it had bright angry orange eyes.

Once it located its target it shot forward with a shrill cry and slammed to a halt in the centre of the head table. Even from the distance Mateo sat at he could see claws of the Goshawk were embedded deeply into the wood.

He snorted when he spotted the red letter attached to the bird, and he gave voice to his opinion. "An angry bird for an angry letter, this ought to be amusing."

"Who would dare send a howler to the headmaster?" Hermione asked in a scandalised tone.

"We are about to find out," Mateo said, and they all stuck their heads out of the row to watch the upcoming scene.

They weren't the only ones, the dramatic entrance of the hawk had been noted by quite a few of the students. As word spread like wildlife about the howler more and more students were craning their necks around each other to get a good look at the bird and the headmaster. Even the visiting students were getting in on the action, they too knew that _no one_ sent a howler to a headteacher, let alone Dumbledore.

Said headmaster seemed oblivious to the attention he was receiving, he was staring bemusedly at the red envelope that had started to smoke gently. He didn't seem overly terrified of the impending rant, but he didn't seem amused by the fact that someone dared to send one to him. With deft fingers the man untied the string and let the envelope drop to the table top. No one paid attention to the goshawk shooting off out of range of the howler, everyone was much more interested in the aforementioned parchment.

 ** _"ALBUS PERCIVAL WULFRIC BRIAN BLOODY DUMBLEDORE!"_**

Mateo had to bite back a laugh as his godfather's voice echoed through the room. He had heard other students receive howlers before, but no parent had ever been able to sound half as loud or angry as Tony did then. Even his friends seemed suddenly cowed by the sheer rage that had already been conveyed in those simple six words. As he watched he saw more than a few first years actually cower in fear as the incensed rant continued.

 ** _"I trusted you with the life of my godson and his secret and you've failed to look after him. You are in charge of the safety of hundreds of students, how are you so bloody careless with a death tournament? Not only is he being entered into a tournament that he is supposedly too young for, but under your watch he now has to face all your bloody hero worship. Was it too much to ask for him to have a relatively normal education and childhood before you force him into a war? And no I don't bloody care about your secret fears of Voldemort still being alive! If Mateo's secret must be revealed then I think it only fair your own are voiced. If only you are smart enough to work out that the crazy bastard is still alive then I despair for your kind."_**

Mateo looked around the room at that, and he could see that some students were paying attention. There were a lot of worried faces in the crowd now, and not just because of the howler.

 ** _"You are on very thin ice, Dumbledore. If anything happens to my godson then there will be nowhere in the_** **universe,** ** _let alone this planet, where you can hide from our wrath. You're oversight has just managed to piss off two assassins, a god, a supersoldier, two mutants very similar to your own kind, a home-grown god, and me. Find who did this, or you may find us paying a visit one night."_**

 ** _"Tony must you really shout, we know you're pissed… Why are you shouting at a bit of paper?"_** Mateo fully laughed aloud at Clint's interruption of Tony's tirade.

 ** _"It's parchment, bird brain, and shouting at it lets me shout at Dumbledore. It's the magical version of voicemail,"_** Tony snapped back, still in a very angry tone.

 ** _"Oh… Can I join in?"_** Clint asked in a very hopeful tone.

 ** _"Yeah why not?"_** Tony probably shrugged at that point, Mateo guessed.

 ** _"Right, here goes… Listen up you beardy git! I've killed more important people than you, and we've destroyed more powerful forces than you and your magic. If Mateo comes to any harm then you will find out exactly why we are globally feared, and there will be no way for you to hide from us. I will personally give you the slowest and most painful death I can if he is harmed. Man that feels better, see you in the range Tony,"_** With that the assembled student body assumed that the archer had left the room.

 ** _"Oh, and Mateo,"_** said student was surprised that the letter managed to rotate and pointed straight at him. **_"Nat said to expect some presents over the next few weeks. She and Clint are going to make sure you keep up with your training in light of this Hunger-Games-esque tournament you've been signed up for. And it Clint who insisted we bought Clemantine for suitable dramatics, so you better have a clear memory of this so we can see if he did his job."_**

 ** _"Don't fail us again Dumbledore, I'm pretty sure that Mateo will agree with me that his continued enrolment at your school isn't worth dying for."_**

And with that the red envelope shredded itself to pieces before bursting into flame, littering ash over the headmaster's food. For a good few minutes the hall was silent, as if people were still processing the message from the muggle billionaire. Some held their breath as if expecting a similar retort from the very powerful and recently insulted wizard, but Albus merely put his plate to one side and a fresh one appeared, which he promptly started filling with ash-less food.

"Well that lifted my mood," Mateo's wry tone broke the silence around him and drew a few chuckles from his friends. Slowly people returned to their food, although the conversation was significantly more subdued than five minutes ago.

"Cedric would you mind if I had a private word?" Mateo asked as the meal eventually wrapped up and students started drifting from the tables.

"No I don't mind, shall we go somewhere less busy?" Cedric replied and got up from the table.

Mateo nodded and led the way from the room. The Hufflepuff assumed they would turn into the first available classroom and was slightly surprised and curious as they kept winding up the central staircase.

"You know there are plenty of private places nearer than where you seem to be heading," he said as they reached the third floor and kept climbing.

"There are but the place I am thinking of is a lot more secure than just an empty classroom," Mateo was purposefully vague in his explanation to keep their destination secret still.

Cedric still looked extremely confused when they reached the junction of corridors on the seventh floor but at least kept his silence for which Mateo was grateful. After pacing along the same stretch of corridor three times Mateo grinned when he heard the gasp behind him as the door formed out of solid stone.

"After you," Mateo opened the door and bowed Cedric inside.

"What is this room?"

"The Room of Requirement, the room you walk into will exactly meet the desire of the person who asks for its use. You can also set who can enter whilst you are in here, so whilst we will have a few friends joining us no one else may enter," Mateo explained.

"That is actually quite useful," Cedric said after thinking about it. "I assume this is where you are planning to do some training?"

"If we want to then yes," Mateo said.

Just then the door opened and Kevin and Hermione walked in. "Neville is going to get the other two and they should be here soon."

"Thanks Hermione, it'll be good to have everyone here at once," Mateo said.

"You know they are going to be ready to grill you? We have quite a few questions even if they don't," Kevin slumped onto a sofa next to Mateo.

"I would expect nothing less," it was probably only the second time that Mateo had wished his friends were not so smart. But then he wouldn't be happy not telling them the whole truth and having lies in their friendships.

Neville, George and Fred appeared five minutes later and the appearance caused Cedric to raise an eyebrow in surprise. "The twins?"

"They are surprisingly trustworthy, and their jokey behaviour makes them the perfect confidants as no one would expect them to be part of anything more nefarious than school pranking," Mateo explained.

"Aww shucks Mateo -."

"Stop it-."

"You're making us blush," the twins grinned and chose a sofa to sit on. They sat down at the same moment, and crossed their legs at the same time, making the five others smile.

"So, I owe you all an explanation-."

"That's a bit of an understatement," Fred interrupted.

"Read understatement of the century," George agreed.

"And I'm not going to get to tell you about it if you keep talking," Mateo snapped and the twins looked suitably chastised.

With the group silent around him once more Mateo took a deep breath and started to explain his story from the beginning. However in comparison to the doctored version Cedric and the Ravenclaws had heard before he left no detail out and left them in no doubt as to why he had fled the Dursley house. By the end of it Mateo was in desperate need of a drink from talking so much, and the others were staring at him in awe.

"Bloody hell mate, no wonder you want to stay as Mateo," Fred said shakily.

"And now we see why you never would have wanted to enter the tournament," George admitted.

"Shit, Dudley is your _cousin_? I am so sorry," Kevin apologised as he made the connections.

"It's alright you didn't know, and besides I got him back for everything he had done," Mateo said reassuringly.

"And that is why you don't change with your back to us," Kevin said before he remembered where they were and almost blushed.

"I still have scars," Mateo shrugged, "they don't bother me but I know others would ask questions and delve where I didn't want them to go."

The room fell into an uneasy silence as everyone processed the information they had been given. Mateo let them think for a few minutes before deciding that they had had plenty of time.

He clapped his hands together in a business like fashion and successfully got their attention again. "Well, now that you know we can move onto more important business. Cedric here expressed an interest in joining the team, any objections?"

"Will we be able to source another suit?" Hermione asked.

"Tony probably has extras and spares made for us anyway, and Cedric would probably fit the twin's sizes even if we can't get new stuff made," Mateo said.

"Wouldn't us having spares be rather pre-emptive of us ruining them?"

"Tony has at least three full suits prepped for action every day, and is onto the 42nd version of the suit. He believes in being prepared," Mateo laughed. "Having at least one extra set for emergencies is nothing but good planning."

"Sorry but what are you talking about?" Cedric butted in.

"We decided that after Dumbledore's meddling I at least do not want to associate with him if there is going to be a war, and neither do we want to support Voldemort. So we are setting up a third, or technically fourth, faction in the war. Kevin brought the plans to our outfits that we designed and my godfather will source," Mateo looked at Kevin to hand the newcomer the parchment.

Cedric quickly glanced over the sketched design and whistled, "this isn't going to be cheap. Even one outfit made of dragon leather costs a leg, which is why the Ministry cannot afford to dress the Aurors in it. I think they have some kind of very resilient fabric instead."

"Well Tony has enough money to burn, I tried to point out the costs to him but he ignored me," Mateo said almost guiltily.

The Hufflepuff nodded at the statement and handed the parchment back to Mateo, "so you have the outfits and you are going to train?"

"Anything that will help us at least survive the war is what we are going to be prioritising. But if we can we want to get good enough to be an effective fighting force that can at least help teach and protect the students at Hogwarts," Mateo explained.

"And if we get really good then we are going after the Death Eaters," Fred grinned evilly.

"Dumbledore has his Order of the Phoenix, the Ministry has their Aurors, You-Know-Who has his Death Eaters, and now there will be the Avengers joining in," George pulled the same smile as his twin.

"The Avengers?" Cedric asked.

"It's the name of the superhero group my family are part of and Kevin suggested that we borrow the name. He has a bit of hero worship going on, so seeing as there was an opportunity to say he was an Avenger Kevin took it," Mateo laughed.

"None of you objected," Kevin said defensively.

"And it also works as it is a Muggle related thing, and we decided that we wanted to rub it in the Death Eater's faces that we embrace all things muggle," Mateo agreed.

"Those are the people your godfather listed, the god and such?" Cedric asked.

"Yeah, there's Thor who is an Asgardian and god from Norse mythology, Clint and Natasha are elite assassins, Steve is a supersoldier with the strength of ten men, the Vision is some kind of organic computer that is as powerful as Thor, Tony himself could take on a dragon single handedly too. Finally Pietro and Wanda are Russian mutants, he is as fast as lightning and she has telekinetic and psychic powers. And then there's my dad who you saw turned into a green rage monster in my first year," Mateo rounded off.

"How did a muggle send a howler?" Hermione blurted out, and it was obvious she had been mulling over that question for a while.

"Well he probably hired a wizard to cast the appropriate spells for him to be able to record his voice. This is Tony we are talking about, if it is possible to learn how to do something he will find out. I bet he's got a pensieve as well to watch the memory like he said," Mateo said without hesitation.

"So he will be able to help you with the challenges ahead, like us," Hermione said determinedly.

"But they are supposed to go it alone," Neville said.

"We already agreed last night that the two of us would help each other through, we represent the same school anyway," Cedric announced before he jumped to his feet. "Now, seeing as we have the spare time we could get started with the training this morning."

Everyone sat looking at each other for a minute as if individually thinking whether they were ready to take the plunge. Once Cedric took the lead and started to push his sofa to the side of the room the rest followed suit.

As if it could sense their determination the room vanished the sofas for them and instead covered the room in large cushions for safety. Mateo grinned as he saw the room change, once again realising how much he loved magic.

"So shall we start with the fourth year material and work up to seventh year? I assume for now we want to work on defence and survival?" Cedric asked.

"That sounds good to us, Mateo will need to catch up with what you know for the Tournament. We can build in agility training and physical self-defence on other days," Hermione replied.

"So how about we make it Sunday mornings that we meet?" Mateo suggested as they started to walk to the door.

"We have nothing else on this year thanks to the Quidditch being cancelled, so how about Sundays and Wednesdays?" Fred asked, clearly still a tiny bit sore about the temporary cessation of their favourite past time.

Everyone agreed to that suggestion, some were a bit more reluctant than others but the slightly ominous threat looming over one of their group had them prepared to support Mateo.

Cedric took to making a point of chatting with Mateo at least once a day after that, and they soon became good friends. His actions also ensured that those that seemed to have a grudge against Mateo for being chosen knew that Cedric did not hold the same view as them. Although the gesture seemed to be lost on some people Mateo found himself at least slightly less shunned by the student body. However he had greater worries facing him, that being in the form of the media and the government. He quickly learnt this on the following Friday, at the first official event of the Triwizard Tournament.


	58. Chapter 58 - Weighing of the Wands

**A/N: Sooooo, I hadn't realised it had been two months since I last updated! That makes sense though, I've been two months behind my apprenticeship work too. Work has been crazy over the last part of summer holidays, and although we are quieter during term time I still end up coming home and crashing on the sofa. Part of me wants to move closer to work so I'm not driving for two hours a day, but I love my family and don't want to move away from them. So it looks like I'm stuck with good music and a dodgy radio in my car for the foreseeable future!**

 **I shall try to update more regularly, but in case I lapse again I am incredibly sorry! Getting ahead on the next chapter for you all. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy and thanks as always for reading!**

* * *

 **Chapter Fifty Eight – The Weighing of the Wands**

Mateo and his friends were carefully brewing antidotes the following Friday when they heard something very unusual: a timid knocking on the classroom door.

"Enter," Snape intoned.

Mateo didn't look up as a small hesitant person pushed open the door and almost tiptoed up to Snape's desk.

"What is so important that you have to disturb my classroom?" Snape growled.

"Mr Bagman asked me to bring Harry Potter to him," Colin said, the excitement of being given such a task bled through his nervousness.

"Mr Potter," Mateo didn't have to look up to know that the professor was looking at him, "still has an hour of work to complete. What is so important that that can be interrupted?"

"I think they want to take photos…" Mateo wanted to thump his head against the desk at that statement.

"Fine, Potter leave your stuff here to work on when you get back," Snape's voice was slightly stilted, and Mateo didn't have to look up to see he was speaking through gritted teeth by then.

"Please sir, Mr Bagman said-."

"Potter take your stuff and get out!"

Mateo half wanted to protest that he was not some dog to be summoned or sent places, but it was extremely obvious Snape was mere seconds away from hexing someone. So instead he quickly gathered his quill, parchment, and bag before Neville gestured that he would clear the workstation. Mateo flashed his Gryffindor friend a quick smile before striding as quickly and silently as possible from the room.

Over the last week he had not only had to deal with the change in attitudes towards him from the students, but also from the teachers. Flitwick and McGonagall were acting like they were thinking through the revelation, Sprout was slightly less friendly but still pleasant towards him, and Snape was now downright hostile. But his attitude towards Mateo was also seemingly quite suspicious and calculating, as if he was trying to figure out whether he was to treat Mateo the same as before or to increase the hostilities. It was surprising how he had changed, for some reason his true name impacted the man more than knowing what kind of a person he was already.

Only Hagrid had been completely pleasant over the whole thing, he had engulfed Mateo in an enormous hug after the first lesson after the big reveal and had rambled on about how he was glad Harry was alright.

Moody's reaction had been interesting to watch. At the beginning of the first lesson the man had fixed both eyes on him as if trying to drill into his soul. After a good minute of staring the man had slapped him on the shoulder, congratulated him on his subterfuge, and had started the lesson.

"How are you doing Harry?" Colin's excited question pulled Mateo back to the present.

It was only as Colin spoke as they left the dark hallways of the dungeons that he realised escaping Snape's anger meant that he was now saddled with Colin. Right now Mateo wasn't sure what was worse, Snape wanting to kill him or Colin fawning over him.

"I am fine thanks Colin, and you?" he replied politely.

"I'm great now that I know you are Harry Potter! I had wanted to find you ever since I heard about you but because no one knew you were you I thought I wasn't going to meet you. But I can meet you properly now! My family will be so excited to hear that I met Harry Potter!"

Colin's rambles just helped to cement to Mateo his resolution to never be Harry Potter, everyone had formed their own opinions of how he should behave and even with one person hounding after him Mateo had the urge to flee.

"So where are we heading?" Mateo diverted the conversation.

"Fourth floor in a classroom just off the staircase," Colin rattled.

"I think I can find my way from here, you should probably be in class right now. There's no point in both of us failing the year," Mateo smiled kindly and sped up to leave Colin standing alone in the corridor.

He found the room easily from the low level chatter filtering through the closed door, so he gingerly pushed the door open and poked his head in.

"Ah, Harry! Just in time!" Ludo Bagman bounced over the room and dragged him further into room. "There's nothing to worry about, this is just he Wand Weighing Ceremony, All four of you are here now, so we are just waiting on the judges."

The desks had been pushed to the edges of the room, apart from four that were left in a row in the middle of the room, while a few had been placed next to each other with a velvet cover placed on them. Ludo retook his seat next to a witch that Mateo had never seen before in magenta robes.

Krum was standing in a corner like the last time the champions had gathered together and was staring around the room with a suspicious glare. Cedric and Fleur were chatting against the window, and the woman seemed quite interested in what Cedric was saying. Their friendship had started when Cedric had been eating breakfast with Mateo and the other fourth year Ravenclaws, and they had seemed to have become quite good friends. Fleur certainly seemed interested as she laughed musically and flicker her hair out of her face with a smile. A photographer with a heavy camera that smoked slightly seemed to be giving her more than her fair share of attention.

Ludo was looking a little hungrily at Mateo so he carefully edged across the room and inserted himself into Cedric and Fleur's conversation. "Pretend I'm not here, I just need to avoid being attacked by another idiot."

"What do you mean?" Fleur asked.

"Colin Creevey went full on fanboy, and it looks like Bagman is going to do the same thing," Mateo jerked his head towards the man.

"Champions stick together," Cedric bumped shoulders with him and gave him a reassuring smile.

"Well before the judges arrive we could start some quick interviews," the woman sitting next to Ludo had a positively predatory gleam in her eye as she stared at Mateo.

"That's a good idea, lady and gentlemen may I introduce Rita Skeeter the reporter from the _Daily Prophet_ ," Ludo said.

"How about individual interviews?" Rita suggested, although it was incredibly obvious she had already decided on that approach. "I could start with Harry here, as the youngest champion."

"I think a group interview would work best, you would get through everyone at once and cover more before the judges arrive," Cedric interrupted.

"Zat would probably work well, we all have lessons to be getting back to," Fleur caught on quickly and added her opinion to the mix.

Krum didn't speak but nodded favourably at the suggestion. Rita seemed to want to argue the collective decision but gave up as she saw the determined gazes of the champions.

"That sounds like an excellent idea," she simpered.

Mateo almost snorted at her attempts to curry favour with the other champions once more, and Cedric looked just as unimpressed. However they humoured her by taking their seats in the middle of the room, slightly closer to the reporter but still far enough away to not run the risk of being petted or similarly patronised.

"So how did you all feel when you were picked to be a champion to represent your school in the most glorious tournament in Wizarding history?" Rita started as she pulled a notebook and quill from her purse.

Although he should probably have been thinking about the question Mateo was distracted by the acid green quill that the reporter was using. After being released from the bag it seemed to take on a life of its own and hung in the air, almost as if it was watching the room. Before anyone started speaking the quill zipped into action and started writing at a fast pace, possibly documenting the room and the people within it. But Mateo didn't feel like it was likely to be sticking to honest facts, seeing as most of the articles Rita had written were merely filled with rumour and speculation rather than facts.

"I was very excited, it is a great honour," Fleur started.

"Same," Krum stated.

"To be picked over all the other Hogwarts students was amazing, if the Goblet choses the best person to compete then that is an amazing reference of your character," Cedric smiled politely.

"I was shocked to put it simply," Mateo did not feel like elaborating.

"Ah yes it was quite a surprise for us at the office to hear that the Mateo Banner that caused such a stir two years ago was in fact Harry Potter really. So, Harry, what made you want to reveal yourself, was it the desire to finally gain some attention and recognition for your acts?"

"I was quite content to stay anonymous and watch these three battle it out for the title of Champion. Why would I want to be constantly hounded after by supposed fans when the event that made me famous also cost me my genetic family?" Mateo asked politely.

"Perhaps you decided that it was time to make your parents proud in the most impressive way possible?" Rita seemed happy to try to rile him up.

"Why would I feel the need to make my parents proud when I know my father is already?"

"Your father?"

"I've had an adoptive father since I was six as you know, seeing as you wrote that report in my second year and did plenty of digging at the time," he pointed out and felt equal parts satisfaction at one-upping Rita, and worry for his dad.

"We never managed to find out much information about him back then, so would you care to elaborate?" Rita asked with a sickly sweet smile on her face, and her quill seemed to vibrate in excitement.

"Not particularly. This is a group interview for the Triwizard Tournament, not a private interview on my life. Personally I feel that you should spend more time interviewing the other three who have a better chance of winning than I do," Mateo suggested mildly and tried to make sure his voice was very obviously not confrontational.

However Skeeter seemed to take it as defensive and her eyes sparkled in interest. Her quill seemed to pick up on her vibe and was scribbling furiously as it documented the interview, and Mateo got the sense that something bad was going to come of his last words.

"So how do you _proper_ champions feel about a fourth interloper?" Rita asked with a bite in her voice, obviously not too happy with Mateo's control of the interview.

"It will be interesting to compete against him, but I'm not sure if he has a chance," Krum stated honestly.

"Mateo seemz to have intelligence and cunning beyond his years, alzough he plays himself down I reckon he has a good chance," Fleur sent a smile in Mateo's direction.

"I've played against Mateo for the last three years as seekers for our houses and I know he has yet to lose against another player. I'm not going to underestimate him," Cedric stated.

"So you seem to be a lot deadlier than you make yourself out to be," Rita turned back to Mateo.

"Quite possibly," Mateo said with a shrug of self-depreciation.

"What are you hoping or expecting to turn up in the challenges?" the reporter turned back to the group as a whole.

"Dragons," Krum stated, but whether he hoped they turned up or if he was guessing Mateo wasn't sure.

"Even normal things like Dementors would be a challenge enough, I know there are many students who fear them after last year," Cedric shuddered.

"Dragons would not be fun, but zere are many mythological creatures I wouldn't mind seeing like a cockatrice, or a cerberus. Facing zem might be another matter though," Fleur chipped in.

"We joked about them arranging basilisks for us to face, but whether they can find one for each of us is another matter," Mateo smiled humourlessly.

"You have already faced a basilisk in your second year, surely dragons and cockatrice would be a walk in the park," Skeeter pointed out.

"Luck can only take you so far, and it seems like mine is running out," said Mateo.

However his luck managed to hold on, and before Rita could ask any more question the door to the classroom opened again. The three head teachers of the three schools lead the column, followed by Mr Crouch and finally a rather eccentric looking man. Cedric and Mateo both nodded politely at the final enterer, and the fourth year was surprised to see that Cedric was as nervous as he was bout meeting the wandmaker again.

"May I introduce Mr Ollivander? He is the UKs greatest wandmaker and has agreed graciously to check your wands to ensure that they are each working perfectly in order for you to compete in the tasks ahead," Dumbledore explained primarily for the two foreign student's benefit.

"Mademoiselle Delacour, could we have you forward first please?" said Ollivander as he stepped into the space between the judges desk and the champions.

Fleur easily swept up to the white-haired man and passed over her wand without a moment's hesitation. The man seemed to make some interested sounds unconsciously as he rotated the wand and inspected every inch of it as it was held millimetres from his nose.

"Nine and a half inches, inflexible, made of rosewood and containing… ah."

"A 'air from ze 'ead of a Veela," Fleur said proudly. "It was from my grandmuzzer's."

Mateo nodded as they heard the revelation, he had heard mutterings from the other students about how the woman could potentially be part-Veela. From his perspective it was nice for the rumours to have been about something other than him.

"Yes, I have never worked with Veela hair myself of course. I find they make rather temperamental wands, but each to their own… and if it suits you…" Ollivander shrugged.

With one final check for scrapes or cracks Ollivander twirled the wand in his fingers before muttering a spell. A bunch of flowers burst from the wand tip and he passed them to Fleur with a small bow.

"It is in fine working order," he declared as Fleur headed back to her chair, "Mr Diggory?"

"Ah now this is one of mine now, isn't it?" Ollivander perked up a little at seeing his own handiwork. "Contains a single hair from the tail of a particularly fine male unicorn… must have been at least seventeen hands and almost gored me after I plucked the hair. Twelve and a quarter inches, ash, pleasantly springy. It's in fine condition, I see you treat it regularly?"

"I polish it weekly," Cedric stated with a grin.

The wandmaker sent a stream of silver smoke rings floating around the room and pronounced himself satisfied with its condition before sending Cedric back to his chair. "Mr Krum, if you would be so kind."

Krum was a lot less elegant in his progression from his chair to Ollivander, but Mateo noticed that he walked rather flatfooted anyway which could not help his posture at all. However sloppy his walking was, the way he drew and presented his wand was very refined and reverent.

"Hmm this is a Gregorovitch creation if I am right? A fine wand-maker, although the styling was never quite what I…"

Ollivander fell silent as he closely examined the wand. "Hornbeam and dragon heartstring? Rather thicker than one usually sees, and quite rigid too. Ten and a quarter inches… _Avis_!"

A blast similar to that emitted by a firing gun sounded and a flock of small birds shot out of the end of the wand. The twittering flock disappeared out of the open window and into the water sunlight.

"Good," Ollivander said approvingly as he handed the wood back to the Quidditch player. "Which leaves Mr Potter."

Mateo stood quickly but walked at a leisurely pace to the empty space, drawing his wand as he went. When he met Ollivander he presented the item hilt first for the elder man to take.

"Ah yes, yes I remember this one well," Ollivander said softly as he started to inspect the wand he held inches from his eyes.

"Cherry wood, ten and a half inches, resistant, and with a phoenix feather core," Ollivander said absentmindedly as he studied it. "That's odd."

Ollivander then looked up at Mateo with surprise and uncertainty. They had barely locked gazes when Mateo felt a voice whispering in his head. _"Can you hear me?"_

 _"You're a Legilimens?"_ Mateo thought back in amazement.

 _"Naturally, it helps me match my customers to their wands. Although as you proved, it can sometimes be a bit more tricky than merely skimming through a child's thoughts. What is curious is you can hear me, not many untrained wizards can."_

 _"I had a tutor that had mastered a similar skill, and he taught me some of the basic skills so that he didn't have to come find me whenever he needed me. Now, what is wrong with my wand?"_ Mateo asked in concern.

 _"There's nothing wrong with the functionality with the wand, but there is something different impeding your bond with your wand,"_ it seemed like the old man was finding it difficult to put into words what he had learnt. _"You have an amazing connection to magic, one that I have never seen before. And indeed, you did not possess it when you first came to my shop. For some reason, perhaps the two are linked, your connection with your wand has weakened slightly. It is nothing to be concerned about, your connection is still strong enough for your magic to flow without trouble, but it is curious."_

 _"I can live with that, I know the answer and would have guessed something like that had happened anyway,"_ Mateo said, projecting his feelings of relief and gratitude to the man.

He quickly severed the link and focussed on the room once more. It seemed that only a couple of seconds had elapsed since Ollivander had made his exclamation, so Mateo quickly filled the silence. "Is everything alright, sir?"

"What?" whether Ollivander was playing along or whether he was actually caught out by the change from mental to oral conversing Mateo wasn't sure. "Oh, I thought I perhaps had felt something but I believe I was mistaken. Magical objects can randomly fluctuate their power, a bit like a flicker of a candle flame. It's nothing to worry about, but an odd sensation to feel."

"I'm glad it's nothing to worry about, having a temperamental wand would be a bit of a pain," Mateo smiled, grateful that Ollivander still kept his code of discretion.

Ollivander let him return to his seat before turning to the judges and declaring that each wand was in perfect condition for the tournament.

Mateo's hope that they would be able to escape soon after that were squashed as the photographer bounded forward, his faintly smoking camera gripped tightly in his hands.

What followed was a further hour of innumerable photos of all the champions and the judges. Mateo had tried to avoid being in as many photos as possible, but he was still in far too many for his liking. He was dragged into group photos with the other four champions, and an entire group one with the judges. But he flatly refused to be in any photo on his own, stating that he would have to be with Cedric because they both represented the same school. He was eternally grateful that the Hufflepuff graciously agreed, and before the gathering had finished he was already planning a large Christmas present for his new friend.

Eventually the hype started to wind down, and the photographer started to pack away his camera. Skeeter was still standing in a corner muttering to her acid green quill, that hadn't stopped writing since Ollivander had appeared.

Slowly people started to drift off in groups, pretty similarly to when the champions had first been announced. Krum and Karkaroff stomped off together, and the representatives from the Ministry left in a cluster. Madame Maxime had been deep in conversation with Ollivander, so they continued their conversation as they left.

Fleur, Cedric and Mateo had been chatting together for the last few minutes, and upon seeing the rest of the party heading off they attempted to follow suit. However they had barely made the door when Dumbledore called them back. Or, more accurately, called one of them back.

"Harry, if I may detain you a little longer."

"See you guys later, I doubt I'll be long enough to miss lunch," Mateo said in reassurance, having seen Cedric's questioning look.

The two champions left the room whilst Mateo turned back to his headmaster and looked at him with a questioning gaze. Although he was pretty confident in his abilities to shield his mind, he didn't make full eye contact with the older man just in case.

"You have a visitor," the headmaster said simply.

For a moment Mateo's heart soared, thinking that perhaps a member of his family had arranged a surprise visit. Those thoughts came crashing down when a man shorter than himself came into the room.

Said man wore a lime green bowler hat, and a pinstripe suit. Even without knowing anything more than his appearance Mateo could tell he was a politician and, as a guess, he was here to talk to the newly revealed Harry Potter. Mateo bit back a sigh and rubbed his eyes before returning his gaze to the man and pretending to look curiously interested.

"Harry my dear boy, I'm glad to finally meet you at last," the man strode forward and firmly grasped his right hand in a handshake.

"Excuse my ignorance sir, but who are you?" Mateo asked.

"Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic," Cornelius seemed a little put out that Mateo didn't immediately know him, but he quickly bounced back.

"Ah sorry, I don't read the paper much," he shrugged and fell silent.

Mateo could guess the kinds of topics that could be brought up the coming conversation; how honoured the man was to meet him, why he had kept his identity a secret, how was he a parselmouth… So to make things more awkward he decided to not play along, and would only reply to the questions he was asked. It may have been childish of him but Mateo didn't want to give this man any chance to think he was any different from before the big reveal.

"So it was quite the surprise when Barty Crouch owled me with the news that not only there a fourth champion in the Triwizard Tournament, but also that it was _you_ ," the man said breezily.

"Indeed," Mateo replied to prove he was listening.

"And what's more, you've been here all this time anyway! Why all the hiding, you've got nothing to be ashamed of," the man said in a grandfatherly way.

"Who said anything about being ashamed?" Mateo said mildly. "I hid myself to avoid this kind of reaction. I'm just another student and without my real name I could be just that."

"Where have you been for the last… however many years?" Fudge changed the subject, apparently giving up on trying to out argue the teen.

"Here and there, but most recently America with my adoptive father and our surrogate family," Mateo explained.

"Why are you living in America? They are an odd sort over there, it would be much better to move back home."

"But America is my home, that's where my family lives," he retorted.

"Who are you living with?" Cornelius demanded.

"My dad and a number of friends and godparents."

"I don't recognise the name Banner as a magical one, even amongst those American families," Fudge pressed. "They are muggles?"

"Yes," Mateo could tell that was immediately something that hadn't gone down well.

"Why are you living with muggles? American ones at that? I realise you wanted to keep him safe but that an extreme choice," the last sentence was spoken to Dumbledore himself.

Before the headmaster could try to explain the situation, or agree with Fudge, Mateo cut in. "It was my choice, I fled my home and Bruce took me in and adopted me. I didn't know a thing about magic until I was eleven when Dumbledore found me again. Do you thing I would leave them all behind just because I could do something different?"

"But you should be living amongst us, not some rabble of muggles," Cornelius announced.

"If my family were good enough for Mateo Banner, why are they suddenly not good enough for me now you know I'm Harry Potter?" Mateo said angrily.

"Because you deserve better, you should have the best because of what you have done for us. They can't provide for you as well as a respectable wizarding family can," the Minister said.

"And better for me is the kind of people that discriminate others simply because of their parentage? Better are those who are completely vulnerable if they don't have a special stick to help them?" he knew he was being harsh, but anyone who knew him well knew that insulting his family was a dangerous thing to do.

"You make it sound like we are the simple people here," Fudge spluttered.

"In some ways the muggles are behind because they don't have magic to turn tables into cats, but in other ways they are much more advanced… I tell you what, if I come anywhere except first in the tournament then we can return to this discussion that I need a better home," Mateo offered.

"If you've been living with muggles, and have not received education for the last year when you were missing, then how do you even think you will be able to compare to seventh years? Let alone win?" Fudge asked in what seemed to be genuine confusion.

"Come to every task, and see just how disadvantaged I may be against the competition," Mateo smiled charmingly.

"I think I can make time to come and watch a historic event unfolding," Fudge said after some consideration.

"Just be aware, Minister, that whoever put my name in the Goblet didn't do it for fun. There is some foul plot afoot, and I would bet every galleon in every vault I own that it is something to do with Voldemort. Everyone was happy with my supposed disappearance, only Death Eaters would be determined to uncover me, probably to have me killed," Mateo said in complete seriousness.

"That's a bit of a dark view to have," Fudge said nervously. "And a misplaced one as You-Know-Who has been dead for over a decade. You know that better than anyone."

"It's the truth, which may be dark but at least I'm accepting what is likely to be going on. At least I'll die with my eyes open and facing the enemy. Can you say the same?" Mateo asked.

When there was no answer to his question he quickly headed to the door as fast as he could without looking like he was fleeing. As it was he hoped it looked like he was anxious to head to lunch, which he was now ten minutes late for.


	59. Chapter 59 - What's in a Name?

**A/N: Another update! Look at me, being organised! Work has finally slowed a little, meaning I can get on with stuff _I_ want to do. Also I'm trying to distract myself from later - I'm starting my genetic testing today for the BRCA 1 gene, so writing another chapter seems like a good thing to do. I'm hoping to get far enough to post again next week, so see you then!**

* * *

 **Chapter Fifty Nine – What's in a Name?**

"You know you really ought to calm down," Hermione said gingerly.

"CALM DOWN?!" Mateo roared as he punched straight through a mirror.

The shards of glass and pottery that littered the floor spoke of how well his attempts to calm down had gone so far.

"It's just Skeeter being her usual self," Kevin agreed with Hermione.

"But this is my life! Nothing she says is true, and we all know that the sheep that make up this stupid society will swallow any lie she spouts."

Mateo didn't seem to notice the little streams of blood that trickled from his knuckles to the floor. He was too busy pacing the Room of Requirement, his mind wrapped up in the article that had been splashed across the front of the _Daily Prophet_ that morning. It had taken him reading only the first three paragraphs to send Mateo into a silent rage. Two more paragraphs later and Kevin, Neville, and Hermione had realised the danger when the newspaper started ripping in his grip, and they hurried him from the hall.

The Room of Requirement had apparently sensed his anger and had obligingly provided hundreds of breakable objects, from hideous collectable figurines to huge mirrors. So far half of the objects had been thrown, kicked, and punched; and they had only been in the room for three minutes.

 _"I suppose I get my strength from my parents. I know they'd be proud of me if they could see me now. Yes, I sometimes still cry at night over them and I'm not ashamed of that…_ She didn't even ask me about my parents!" Although he had only read that passage once, the false words had burnt themselves onto his brain.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of for having emotions, even if she is lying at least she painted you as a caring and compassionate person," Hermione tried to placate her friend again. "And you know how people will forget about this in a few days, something else will happen to grab their attention and this article will be forgotten."

"That's not the point! How can she get away with printing blatant lies? And everyone at the school will believe her," Mateo shouted.

In another futile attempt to relieve his anger he picked up a weighty vase from its pedestal and lobbed it at the nearest wall. Pure luck saved the twins from being showered with sharp fragments of pottery as they walked through the door.

"Shall we come back at a better time?" George asked as they noticed the state the room was in.

"No, I doubt there will be," Mateo said with frustration.

"Cedric is on his way up too," Fred informed them.

"Just what I need," Mateo growled as he put a foot through a glass pane.

"You know you were never this violent before your year out," Kevin said hesitantly.

"Yeah well back then I didn't have anything to upset me," Mateo countered.

"You did," Neville bravely retorted. He blushed slightly as the room stared at him, but he carried on. "In second year Skeeter published that article blaming you for attacking Colin and you were pretty annoyed then. But you were level headed, this is bordering on uncontrolled rage."

"Loki wore off on you," Kevin said, almost in jest. But the smile on his face disappeared as soon as he realised that Mateo was seriously considering the joke.

"What _else_ happened last year? What didn't you tell us?" Hermione asked cautiously.

"Loki and I did a blood transfusion, it incorporated some of his DNA into my system so I could harness some of the magic that he channels. It altered my biology a bit so that I could handle the magic but that was it," Mateo explained.

"You did a blood adoption with the trickster god?" Hermione said faintly.

"No, it was a blood transfusion…?" Mateo saw how pale his friend had gone and felt an icy sensation start to bloom in his gut.

"Blood adoption?" Neville asked.

"The ritual is forbidden as dark magic, but it involves one person receiving the blood of another. The recipient will find that from the blood their own DNA and magical signature will change slightly to match the donor. If anyone was to do a test, Loki would show up as a third parent for Mateo. If he wanted to, Loki could claim you as his own child and there would be nothing that anyone on Earth could do to stop him," Hermione said sombrely.

"But it was just a blood transfusion, humans do it daily," Mateo said faintly, feeling sick.

"But muggles don't have to worry about how their magic will react to someone else's being introduced to their system," Hermione pointed out. "Did he take any blood of yours?"

"He said he needed to check I wouldn't reject it, just like with blood types in muggle surgeries," Mateo responded in a small voice.

The room fell into silence as the implications started to sink in, and everyone stared at Mateo. What he had thought was an innocent offer may have turned out to be some drastic plot for revenge, and he felt sick to the core. Without paying mind to the destruction and debris around him he sank to his knees in order to avoid falling down.

"What does this have to do with his anger issues?" Fred asked.

"I thought personality traits couldn't be cloned or passed on from parents," Kevin said, obviously working hard to remember what little muggle science he knew.

"It depends whether rage is a genetic trait of Frost Giants," Hermione pointed out. "We have no idea, the only one we know is Loki."

"Thor said they are a fearsome race, always ready for the next battle. Loki himself was abandoned because he was too small, so that shows how caring they are. Which means I'm stuck like this for life," Mateo said miserably.

"Not necessarily, you have been under extreme stress over the last few months. Remember you are going through puberty which makes us more hormonal and angsty anyway, then you've had to deal with your dad disappearing, and your biggest secret being revealed."

"But we should probably get you some meditation books or something," Kevin joked.

"Meditation?" Cedric asked as he appeared in the room.

"It's a muggle form practice of calming your thoughts and clearing your mind," Hermione replied.

"Why does Mateo need to meditate?" he asked.

"Turns out I may be a permanent rage monster in the future thanks to a dumb decision last year. But oh well!" Mateo said with fake cheer.

"Just so you know the Hufflepuffs are annoyed at Skeeter for publishing a pack of lies. They asked me if what she published was true and believed my story that you wanted us to do a joint interview. I left a copy of the article with all the lies crossed out, so I think there's barely two paragraphs left," Cedric reported.

"Well that's at least one quarter of the school I can rely on."

"The Gryffindor's don't really care about the article, they are still smarting that Harry Potter isn't in their house," Fred added.

"And those that do care we'll work on," George promised.

"And who cares about the Slytherins?" Kevin finished off.

"Draco has been rather quiet these last weeks though," Mateo realised.

"Who cares? It's nice and quiet!" Kevin said happily.

"He's just learnt that the person he's been bad mouthing for the last three years is actually the hero of the Wizarding world, he's likely keeping his head down in case people start taking notice," Hermione explained.

"But he's not even picking on me," Neville wasn't sure of Hermione's reasoning.

"I think Hermione's right, he's just in a state of shock. Give it a while longer and he'll bounce back," said Cedric.

"Now that you seem to have calmed down a bit, do you think we should take you to the Hospital Wing? We have lessons to go to in a few minutes," Hermione brought everyone's attention back to the trashed room.

"Oh, yeah," Mateo looked at the congealed blood on his hand. "I'll live."

"You can't go around classes with blood on your hands," Hermione protested.

"We have Care of Magical Creatures first, we're going to pass a lot of bathrooms on the way down," Mateo pointed out. "I'll just nip in and wash this off."

"But-," Hermione looked ready to argue until they were both blue in the face, but a glare from Mateo silenced her at last.

"I need to run, I have transfiguration first, but I assume we are on for our usual meeting tonight?" Cedric asked as he headed to the door.

By the evening Mateo was feeling calmer, which was mostly due to his friends being right. Very few people seemed to take Skeeter's bias interview to heart, thanks mostly to Mateo and Cedric eating together at every opportunity. When Fleur joined them and made loud conversation about how false the reporter was the few believers seemed to lose their faith.

"So, do we have any idea of how we want to start preparing for the first task?" Cedric asked as the seven of them sealed themselves in the Room of Requirement.

"What do we actually know about the tasks they designed in previous years?" Kevin replied.

"Each one was different, both year to year and also between tasks in a year. Mostly they tested how skilful a champion was in their spellcasting. Although there were mental puzzles to solve sometimes too," Hermione summarised.

"Trust you to have studied and dissected the tasks," Mateo grinned.

"Often champions had to face dangerous creatures," Fred said.

"Mostly native to the country the tournament was held in that time," George finished.

"But we don't have many native species left," Cedric said thoughtfully. "All that we really have left are unicorns, centaurs, werewolves and vampires. And I doubt we'd face either of the latter. And the former two aren't threatening and it would probably be illegal to fight one."

"So we might be facing a dangerous creature, or we might not. Do you think they'll give us a hint closer to the date?" Mateo sighed in frustration.

"Probably, I know Ludo has bet large money on who is going to win," Cedric said.

"How do you know that?" Kevin asked.

"My dad works in the ministry, Ludo is not subtle in trying to get others in on the action," Cedric shrugged.

"Well in the mean time we should probably get you two working on shielding charms, perhaps notice-me-not and confundus charms too," Hermione said in a business like fashion.

"Yes ma'am," Mateo snapped off a pretty crisp salute, to the amusement of the other men in the room. Hermione did not seem quite so impressed.

Although both Mateo and Cedric remained hopeful that someone would give them a hint about the first task, the first few weeks passed without any kind of help. It became a bit of a tradition between the group to joke about what could be coming as they practiced together. Although there was a serious reason behind it both the Hogwarts Champions appreciated the lighthearted tones that the debates were held in.

As the time slowly passed and the designated date for the first task drew closer Mateo found himself desperately trying to find any way to distract himself from the thought of the task. Having made a bet with the minister didn't help his peace of mind, and Mateo wasn't surprised when he started to have trouble sleeping. It was on the eighteenth of October at 3am when he decided that enough was enough.

Mindful of the sleeping teens around him he slid quietly out of his bed and got dressed. Although the common room was carpeted, the other floors were either wood or stone, probably so the prefects could hear people sneaking around. So to avoid being caught he left his shoes off until he was in the common room. He did wake a few portraits who muttered quietly about his uncharacteristically unruly behaviour, but none of them told him off.

Without any real plan of where he was going Mateo started wandering through the black and silent corridors. He breathed in the cold air and revelled in the refreshing taste of cold stone. It made him chuckle to think that only three years ago he would have already been wearing a t-shirt under his uniform to ward off the cold, and now he was happily walking around in his summer uniform still.

After a while he found himself descending the grand staircase and passing the Great Hall, and he was still alone. Even the ghosts were surprisingly absent, and for a few minutes he entertained himself with thinking of what ghosts might do to past the time. He knew Myrtle did just spend most of her time moping, but he wasn't sure what the rest did. Just to satisfy his curiosity he poked his head into the great hall, but didn't encounter a secret ghost council as he thought there may have been.

Finally his feet came to a stop in the courtyard of the school. Light rain was falling from the sky, creating a quiet melody of pattering on different textured surfaces. The smell of wet stone had been replaced by soaked earth, and for many minutes Mateo merely stood with his eyes closed and breathed in the scent. With no one around he revelled in the silence and the symphony of the rain.

"Is there a good reason you are breaking curfew Mr Potter?" the quiet baritone voice was still a shock to Mateo's system, and he almost fell over in surprise.

"Professor Snape," he said once he had regained his composure.

"Well? I'm waiting," the black clad man blended well with the darkness around them, even his unnaturally pale skin was hard to distinguish in the gloom.

"I couldn't sleep, sir," Mateo replied honestly.

"Are there no books in your common room? It must be end of days," Snape said sarcastically.

"I couldn't stand to be inside anymore, sometimes it's just too close and still in there," Mateo gestured back to the castle.

"That does not matter, there are rules for a reason Mr Potter," Snape retorted.

"I know, sorry sir. I've obviously not been thinking straight recently," Mateo sighed and decided not to pursue the argument.

For a few moments the two stood there in silence, and Mateo turned his gaze back to the sky to allow the droplets of rain to fall on his face. He almost forgot the stern potions master was still there, until he told Mateo to follow him. Snape lit his wand and led the way back to the entrance hall. As he pushed the large doors open he just happened to turn and caught sight of the teen in front of him.

"How long has it been since you slept the night through Mr Potter?" he asked.

"Erm… Well… maybe a month? I can do alright on four hours sleep for quite a while, but it does slowly add up," Mateo admitted.

"Why didn't you go to the hospital wing for a potion?" Snape said in a disapproving tone.

"Like I said, I can manage on not much sleep, I'm used to it," Mateo shrugged. He realised how casual he had spoken and quickly corrected himself. "Sir."

"Follow me," Snape didn't wait to see if his order had been obeyed, and quickly led the way down into the dungeons.

Mateo was reminded of the similar scene in his first year when he and George had been caught by the man after smuggling Norbert out of the school. Although there was no redheaded youth in Snape's grasp this time, and Mateo wasn't feeling half as worried. True he knew that he was likely to be in trouble, but at least this time he wasn't terrified of the consequences of hiding a dragon.

Snape was leading them deep into the dungeons, past the potions classroom and into areas where Mateo had never been. Eventually he stopped at a random door and tapped it with his still lit wand. It swung silently open and Snape strode through, and Mateo followed.

Immediately he wished they were visiting the Transfiguration professor like last time, purely because her office was a lot more welcoming that the one they were now standing in. Along every wall were hundreds of jars of pickled things, ranging from cockroaches and eyes to a whole baby deer. After a quick scan to make certain his eyes weren't deceiving him Mateo dropped his gaze to the floor.

The other male in the room seemed impervious to the chilling sight and had been busy rummaging in his cabinet. The sound of chinking glass alerted Mateo to the fact that there were likely just as many vials of potions in there as there was pickle jars around him.

"Here, Dreamless Sleep. Drink the whole bottle for a full night's rest, although you should only take half of it if you wish to wake up in time for breakfast today. If you find you cannot sleep the next night come and see me. Many people find themselves becoming addicted to the potion so if you require multiple doses then we will have to find a more permanent solution to your sleeping problems."

"Thank you sir," Mateo said in a heartfelt tone.

"And twenty points from Ravenclaw, and a week's detention for your blatant disregard for the rules," Snape finished.

"Yes sir," Mateo held back a sigh.

"I expect you in my classroom tomorrow evening at seven," Snape informed him as a dismissal.

"Sir?" Mateo dared to raise his eyes to look at the professor. He carefully kept his gaze trained on the man, rather than their surroundings. "I heard that you are the best Occlumens in the school, and probably in this country."

"Who- Why would you ask Dumbledore about that?" Snape asked.

"I would like to learn Occlumency, and I would be honoured if you would teach me," Mateo pressed on.

"Why do you wish to learn the art?"

"I know many people know how to read other's minds, and I'm likely to encounter those people in the near future. I would like for my secrets to remain my own. It may also help focus my mind and wear me out enough that I might sleep without the need for potions," Mateo tried to press his argument.

"And why should I help you Mr Potter? Why should I give up my time?" Snape seemed determined to make his life difficult.

"Because… Because you know the art and you are the best at it that I can contact. Because I want to at least know that some parts of my life might remain my own without the whole of wizarding society dissecting them. Because it might help me get rid of Voldemort in the future," Mateo rambled, a little hysterically.

"Voldemort is dead," Snape drawled.

"No he isn't, he used Horcruxes to prolong his life. Although his body was destroyed all eight fragments of his soul still survive around the country," Mateo countered. Although he was running the risk of sharing the information with the spy, he didn't feel he trusted the man enough to reveal that two parts at least had already been destroyed.

"How do you know about Horcruxes?" Snape seemed to turn even paler than usual, if such a thing was possible.

"My family and I started researching the magical world as soon as we learnt it existed. When Dumbledore told us of the prophecy and of his fears, we started researching that too. It wasn't hard to find some help and they quickly found out the truth," Mateo explained.

"Very Ravenclaw of you," Snape commented, and for a few seconds Mateo reeled over the almost compliment.

"Thank you sir."

"Fine, you will serve detention with me Mondays and Fridays, whilst you help me with preparation work we will discuss the theory of Occlumency. Once you are far enough with the theory we will move onto practical work. I will give you some books to help you with your learning, but if you slack off then I won't hesitate to stop our sessions," Snape finished off with the stern warning.

"I understand, and I won't disappoint you sir," Mateo promised.

"Potter," Mateo almost wanted to cry when he was called back. "What do you prefer being called?"

"I don't want to be a Potter, there are too many expectations on me when I go by that name. But I doubt I'll ever be able to go by Mateo Banner again… I was thinking of a compromise, Harry Banner honours both of my families. And although I bet the Minister and Skeeter will continue to call me Potter I hope that others would accept my decision," Harry said.

"Goodnight Mr Banner," Snape nodded his head in acceptance.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

"It's going to be weird calling you Harry," Kevin said the next day at breakfast.

"It'll be easier on everyone," Harry sighed, silently agreeing with Kevin.

"But we shouldn't do what's easiest for everyone, but what you want," Neville protested.

"I want life to be as easy as possible, and if that means a name change then I can live with it," Harry said.

"If we keep doing what is easiest for oth-."

"Just drop it Hermione," Cedric stopped her midsentence.

"Thank you," Harry sighed as everyone fell silent.

"How are you going to let everyone know?" Neville asked.

"I'm hoping a quick talk with Professor Flitwick will get the change around the teachers, a letter with do my family… That just leaves the other students. Which hopefully will be solved by the teachers using my new name," Harry summarised.

"How can you just change your name like it's no big deal? It's like changing your identity," Kevin asked.

"I've done it once before, was called by many different derogatory names as a child before that. Another change isn't going to be hard to get used to," harry shrugged. "At least this time I'm using names I've already gone by."

"Can you pass the pumpkin juice Harry?" Cedric asked, seeming to make a point of using the new name.

Slowly the others got the hint and spent the rest of the meal using each other's names to emphasise the point. Those around them seemed to be bemused by their actions, but noticed and seemed to absorb what they were calling Harry.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Two weeks before the task and Harry was moving from mild worry to full blown anxiety. There was no clue about what was coming, and although the seven of them had tried to ensure they knew and could perform every spell that might be useful.

His twice weekly dissecting-and-theory sessions with Snape had also become an almost anticipated meeting. Although trying to dissect mouse livers was a grisly and delicate business, Harry enjoyed listening to Snape talking about the theory of defending his brain. Twelve hours of theory and they were still nowhere near moving onto actual practical lessons. Snape usually spent the first half an hour grilling Harry on his progress with his homework, either with his reading list or with practising with clearing his mind.

Unerringly he left their sessions with his head swimming with information and ready for sleep. Clearing his mind before sleep may take him two hours sometimes but at least he slept the night through when he did fall asleep. Which helped him slightly as the days counted down to the 24th of November.

No one had really mentioned it but Harry could see the concerned looks that Hermione and Kevin shot at him each morning as they walked to breakfast. Neville made sure to always pass him his favourite foods first at each meal, and the twins were keeping up the pranks to try to distract him.

Except on Friday the thirteenth. On that day the pair barrelled into the Great Hall and made a beeline for the Ravenclaw table. Without preamble they grabbed Harry and Cedric and practically dragged them from the room.

"What is going on?" Harry asked as they were shoved into a spare classroom.

Fred didn't answer, as he was busy casting a number of spells. Only when he finished and nodded to George did the second twin speak.

"Dragons."

"Dragons?" Cedric asked.

"Dragons," Fred nodded.

"As in, the first task is dragons?" Harry tried to clarify.

"Yep," George's face held a strange mixture of terror and excitement.

"How did you find out?" Harry asked.

"We saw him on the map," Fred waved the parchment at him.

"What map?" Cedric hadn't been told of the twin's secret to success.

"They have a map that shows the location of everyone in the castle, and I assume your brother suddenly popped up?" Harry clarified.

"Yes, with a bunch of other people in the Forbidden Forest. We don't know any of them but the names ring a bell as people who could be Charlie's work mates," Fred said.

"And it would make sense, we all discussed you having to face a dangerous creature. And dragons are common enough in Romania for you to have one each," George declared.

"This is going to be a nightmare," Harry groaned as the realisation of what they were talking about sunk in.

"At least now we can better prepare for what is coming," Cedric said reassuringly.

"We should probably get back to breakfast-."

"But first…" the twins looked at each other.

Without warning they whipped their wands out and cast one spell each. Fred's spell hit Harry, and George's hit Cedric.

"What did you just do?" Harry asked after he checked himself for obvious signs of jinxes.

"Well we couldn't kidnap you both from breakfast without some obvious reason," Fred chuckled.

"And we have been practicing so hard on some new spells," George finished.

"And we needed some guinea pigs," they finished together.

"Yellow really suits you," Cedric said, and it was obvious he was trying to hold back his laughter.

"What?" Harry quickly looked at Cedric, and failed to hold back his laughter.

Cedric's neatly combed and parted brown hair was now a glorious shade of blue, the exact shade of Ravenclaw's house colour. Harry was in no doubt that his hair was the perfect shade of Hufflepuff Yellow now.

"Great, thanks guys," Harry chuckled, only slightly miffed at the thought. "How long does this last?"

"We aren't sure, you might be like this when the First Task happens," Fred shrugged.

"But at least you'll be showing your support for each other," George added.

"Well then, shall we head back to the great hall?" Cedric chuckled, obviously less annoyed at the prank than Harry was.

His annoyance didn't abate when they walked into the great hall, and caused much merriment around the room. However once they sat down and everyone got used to the change they settled down again, and Harry slowly relaxed.

That evening, it being one of the three evenings where he didn't have any engagement, Harry lay awake and started thinking. Although he knew the seven of them would start pooling ideas and spells to ensure Cedric and he wouldn't be roasted by the dragons, Harry wanted to think outside of the box. He had to win to make sure the Minister had no reason to separate him from his family, but a small part of him wanted to show off whilst he did it. If the world was going to expect him to perform miracles, then he wanted to show that he was up to the challenge. It might be a reckless and Gryffindor thought, but Harry entertained the idea as he slipped into slumber.


	60. Chapter 60 - The First Task

**A/N: 60 chapters! Did we celebrate 50 chapters? I can't remember, but either way I am so pleased that I have managed to stick with this for 300k words, 616 pages, and 60 chapters.**

 **Thanks as always to everyone who is reading this, and doubly to those who follow/fave/review.**

 **Hope you all have a great new year!**

* * *

 **Chapter Sixty – The First Task**

"You need to eat something," Hermione tried to slide some eggs onto Harry's plate.

"If I don't eat I'll be lighter, it'll make it easier to dodge," Harry countered. Although he watched in amusement as Hermione tried to complete her mission from across the table. The House table was quite wide, so she had to lean quite far to reach his plate. Add to that the fact she was trying to balance an egg on a thin spatula and Harry was having fun watching her struggle and concentrate. Normally he would help and lift his plate towards her, but seeing as he didn't want to eat he left it where it was.

"Until you run out of energy and can't move," Kevin argued as he snuck some bacon next to the eggs. He had no problem like Hermione seeing as he was sitting on Harry's right.

"Guys I already feel like throwing up, please don't," Harry whined.

"Just one bite of everything at least, please?" Hermione said in a small voice.

"That won't be enough," Kevin sniped, but quickly quietened with the mirroring glares from both Harry and Hermione.

"Fine," Harry gave in and nibbled on his toast.

"And plenty of juice," Neville filled his goblet. "No caffeine, I remember Hermione saying it is good for alertness but you don't want any side effects."

"You listened to me?" Hermione sounded happy.

"Caffeine can cause headaches, shakes, and you can crash when it wears off. So of course I listen to you, all the time actually. You never know when you'll say something incredibly useful," Neville sounded insulted that she doubted him.

"Thanks Nev," Harry muttered, and sneakily slid one of the two eggs from his plate onto his neighbour's plate. Although he would normally be seen the other three were distracted, Hermione was beaming at Neville whilst Kevin stared pointedly at the two.

"Is your family going to come and watch?" Kevin asked, and quickly scanned the room for them.

"As if you wouldn't have already spotted them," Harry snorted. "I don't know, I'm not sure if they are even allowed to come and watch. Professor Flitwick didn't come and talk to me about arranging a portkey. They did for all my matches, but this is different."

"Cedric's dad isn't here either," Neville pointed out.

"Which is why I don't think mine won't be coming, if he is a wizard and not invited then mine certainly won't be," Harry finished.

"It doesn't matter where they come from," Hermione retorted.

"Of course it does, at least for today Hermione. We have visitors, and although I don't know what the Beauxbatons students feel I know for a fact Durmstrang fully embraces the idea of blood purity. Imagine how insulted they would be if a group of muggles were allowed in to watch? They wouldn't care about the importance of said group, they would just see it as an invasion of their traditional ways," Harry argued back.

"And although we would all love to watch your family beat an entire delegation of wizards into the dirt, it wouldn't be the unifying event the Triwizard Tournament is supposed to be," Kevin said with a smirk.

"You could always meet up with them in a fortnight when we go to Hogsmeade," Terry suggested, having been eavesdropping on the argument. "Hang on, where did this egg come from?"

"They're muggles, they couldn't get into the village," Anthony countered.

"I can walk _out_ of the village though can't I?" Harry pointed out. "There aren't any boundary wards keeping us inside when we go to visit are there."

"I'm not sure how many wards there are over Hogsmeade or Hogwarts, but none of the ones mentioned in _Hogwarts: A History_ mention anything of the sort," Hermione recalled after a short pause.

Harry grinned in triumph and the conversation dissolved into talks over how many wards there could be. It was useful for making the time pass quicker, so Harry tried to keep the conversation going for as long as possible. Also, whilst Hermione was distracted she forgot to try to force more food onto his plate.

Eventually they had to leave for classes, although for Harry he may as well have stayed in bed. He desperately tried to concentrate on their assignment in Herbology, but he just couldn't get his brain to focus. In the end Neville did most of their work, Harry couldn't even remember the name of the bizarre plant they were supposed to be working with. Whilst he gained a few disapproving glances from Professor Sprout she didn't call him out on his lack of attentiveness, although Harry did notice that she set even more homework than usual which was probably his fault.

By lunch time his nerves were at a point where he couldn't open his mouth for fear of vomiting. Thankfully this time no one forced food on him, and he merely sat there sipping the sugary orange juice someone had managed to request for him. He absentmindedly made a mental note to go thank the house elves at some point.

Flitwick's sudden appearance at his elbow had him almost falling off the bench and onto the diminutive teacher. Hermione managed to grab his shoulder to steady him whilst the rest of the table hid their snickers at his uncharacteristic lack of attentiveness.

"Time to go Mr Banner, the champions are to assemble in the grounds to get ready," he squeaked.

Unable to reply, Harry merely nodded and stood. Hushed calls of good luck followed him as he walked up the Ravenclaw table, and half of them came from the Gryffindor table.

Once outside he unconsciously fell into step beside his head of house. A few times the man looked up at him and seemed about to speak, but then stopped himself. It was only as they were almost at the trees that Flitwick finally spoke.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Nervous, sick, worried, tired, and a tiny bit excited," Harry admitted honestly.

"Do you have a plan?" the teacher side of Flitwick started to show.

"Three actually," Harry smiled. "Not including the one where I drop my wand and leg it out of there."

"A true Ravenclaw," Flitwick smiled back, ignoring the seemingly serious comment at the end. "I assume you know what's coming then?"

"If Dumbledore didn't want us finding out then he should have found somewhere out of the school grounds to hide them in," Harry chuckled.

"I have full faith in you, and I'm sure your family does too. I promised Mr Stark I would send him my memory for them to watch. I'll see you afterwards."

They stopped outside of a tent and Flitwick gestured for Harry to head inside. He did so and was greeted by three other pale faces. Harry was almost cheered up to see how worried the others looked, he had been so wrapped up in his own world that he hadn't checked to see how they had been doing. Krum was standing in a corner, dressed in red and black clothes, and looking more sullen than usual. Fleur was in bright blue and black clothes, and nervously fidgeting with her wand. Cedric was standing silently next to Fleur, in yellow and black clothes. All three of them had dark circles under their eyes.

"They might get it right one day," Cedric said by way of greeting.

It didn't take Harry long to realise what exactly he was on about; a set of clothes had been left on a stool for him. And emblazoned across the back in large blue letters, edged in gold, was the word 'Potter'. His clothes were a deeper shade of blue than Fleur's, but Harry had to snort at how stupid the colour choice was. He looked more like a Beauxbatons student than a Hogwarts student, and Fleur and he blurred together. For probably the only time Harry wished he was in Slytherin, at least he would have is own colour to compete in. Harry sighed in resignation and quickly changed into his outfit before returning to stand with the others in a loose square.

"So… I take it we know what we are up against?" Harry tried to break the silence. Although he felt nauseous he wanted to try and take his mind off of what they would be doing in a few short minutes.

Fleur looked nervously at the three men before quickly nodding. Krum grunted, and Harry took it as a positive sound, and Cedric nodded for the benefit of the other two.

"Zis doesn't seem real," Fleur summed up what more than one of them was thinking.

"It didn't seem quite as nerve wracking when we put our names in did it?" Cedric agreed.

"At least you submitted your name by choice," Harry muttered.

"Well at least after zis people probably won't doubt your innocence," Fleur said with a reassuring note in her voice.

Before Harry could respond the doors to the tent flapped open and a whole stream of people entered. All three heads of the schools entered, as well as the other two judges, filled the remaining space of the once large tent.

"Well gentlemen and lady, here we are! The First Task! In this bag I have small figurines of what you are about to face. Ladies first," Ludo beamed as he held the bag out.

Fleur visibly gulped and gingerly reached inside the bag. Harry was slightly worried when he spotted that the bag smoked and spat sparks occasionally. But Fleur's hand re-emerged without injury, and on it sat a tiny green dragon.

"A Welsh Green," Ludo informed them. "Mr Krum?"

Krum proceeded to pull out the Chinese Fireball, and Cedric the Swedish Short-Snout. Harry wasn't sure what his dragon was, but it looked even more angry and dangerous than the other three.

"The Hungarian Horntail," it didn't reassure Harry to hear the slight note of worry in Ludo's voice.

"When the whistle blows, make your way down the path to the arena. You'll find your number on the neck of your dragon," Crouch finished off before Ludo could ramble on. "Good luck."

And then as suddenly as everyone had arrived, they were gone again. For a few minutes the four waited in an uneasy silence, and then a whistle was blown some way away. Cedric visibly pulled himself together and wobbled his way to the door of the tent.

"Good luck," Harry managed to rasp out, his throat having suddenly gone dry.

Cedric merely nodded, and Harry could see that he meant to say the same back. However if the Hufflepuff felt as ill as he looked he was probably trying to keep his lunch down, so Harry forgave him for not speaking.

Whilst they waited and listened to the horrifying and useless commentary he three champions barely kept still. The most composed of them was Krum, and Harry guessed it was thanks to him constantly facing the pressure of globally important Quidditch matches. He sat in a corner on a stool, and the only hint that he was nervous was his wand hand spasmodically twitching.

Fleur and Harry both paced their own tracks into the grassy floor of the tent. Neither consciously planned their routes, but they never intersected or came close to bumping into the other.

After fifteen minutes a great roar from the crowd alerted them to the fact that Cedric had been successful. Harry released the breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.

Soon after the second whistle blew, and the process started all over again. Krum remained still, and Harry paced in a larger circle thanks to the extra space left by Fleur. It seemed that the Beauxbatons student was quicker than Cedric, although there were more gasps and screams from the students than during the first round.

It was a relief when Krum left, as Harry didn't have to keep up his pretence of being calm and collected. Although he didn't fall to pieces completely he did allow his breathing to speed up and become erratic. It was only for a couple of minutes, and he soon composed himself again, but it helped to allow himself a few seconds of terror.

By the time the whistle blew for the fourth and final time Harry was once again collected and ready. The path that ran from the tent was slightly flattened thanks to the numerous students who had rushed past, eager to see the challenge awaiting the Champions. Harry, not for the first or last time, fervently wished his luck was different and that he could have been one of those students.

He rounded the final bend and the trees ended, revealing exactly what he was dealing with.

If possible the real dragon was even more angry than the model had been, and Harry was almost ready to throw his wand away and to high tail it out of there. But he stopped himself and took a deep breath.

"Show time," he muttered to himself as he stepped into the arena.

He felt a tingling on his skin as he passed through some invisible barrier. It seemed to mark the edge of the arena, and would separate him and the dragon from the crowds. A tiny part of his mind identified it as a shield, whilst the rest of his mind dedicated itself to keeping tabs on the dragon and carrying out his plan.

It was difficult to concentrate as the huge golden orbs stared relentlessly into his soul, but Harry forced himself to ignore the mesmerising eyes and focussed on the words that he needed.

 _"En isande vind  
far fram genom skog och dalars hem  
Fryser ben och märg  
Krossar drömmar, rövar dem_

Sov nu, lilla vännen min  
Dröm ett litet sinnes drömmar  
Vid elden stillhet råder  
Här ditt folk vakar över dig

Men i forna seders mull gror livets frö igen"

After one recital Harry immediately leapt into a second round, then a third and fourth. He was just starting the fifth repetition, and was starting to doubt his plan, when he finally noticed any kind of reaction in the dragon.

Although it still glared angrily at him, Harry could see that its eyelids had drooped slightly. Pushing more magic into his voice, and singing slightly louder than before, Harry dared to take two steps towards the dragon.

Ten rounds of the song later and the dragon's eyes were almost closed, and its great snout rested gently against the stone of the arena floor. Harry snuck ever closer and was soon standing by one wing of the dragon.

He stared at it, both through fear and confusion. Surely he wasn't supposed to kill the great beast?

Barely daring to stop singing, he skirted around the lethal tail and found himself face to face with a huge mound of eggs. Whilst most were earthy in colour, one gleamed pure gold and stood out like Thor at a book club.

Gingerly Harry reached forward and scooped the egg up, careful to not disturb the real eggs. Still singing gently he tiptoed around the behemoth until he was standing by its head.

He couldn't help it, and with the opportunity staring him in the face Harry reached out and gently placed his open hand on the span of skin between the dragons eyes. Although he expected the dragon to rear and rip his arm off, Harry wasn't expecting the contented rumble that echoed out of the beast's chest.

 _"Am I imagining things, or is she purring?"_ Harry thought as he continued to pat the beast.

Deciding that the day had been traumatic enough, Harry slowly retreated to the edge of the arena and finished singing. Only now that he was safe did he raise his eyes from the dragon and to the crowd around him.

He half expected to see that everyone in the stands had fallen asleep too, but it seemed that the magical shield had stopped any magic from escaping from the confines of the arena. As a result every single student and staff member was staring at him in silent shock. Even Ludo was silent, and Harry began to wonder if any kind of commentary had happened whilst he had been singing.

Finally someone in the crowd started clapping, and the rest of the students soon caught on. There was little in the way of manic cheering, and although Harry was disappointed he assumed everyone was still too surprised to manage a cheer.

Before he could start wondering what he should be doing Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick appeared from around the stands. Harry went to meet them, hoping they at least would explain what he should do next. Even if they were just there to chat it made him feel less awkward to be standing with other people rather than being on his own and stared at.

"That was incredible Mr Banner!" Flitwick squeaked in excitement. "I've no idea what you did but it was most effective."

"I merely sang it a lullaby," Harry said truthfully.

"Nicely done," McGonagall said faintly, and Harry had to bite back a grin as he saw her fight to act as if a fourteen year old putting a dragon to sleep was an everyday occurrence. "Normally the judges would be conferring whilst the dragon handlers got their charge to leave the arena, and the champion would receive what medical treatment they needed. However in this case I'm not sure what they'll do."

As they watched eight small figures appeared around the dragon and seemed to gather into a huddle. One figure with flaming red hair stood out and Harry guessed that was the Weasley brother. After five minutes of standing together the group broke up and all cast charms at the behemoth. It was a bizarre sight to watch, as the eight gently levitated the dragon from the arena to some other secure location.

With the overgrown deadly lizard out of the way Harry could finally see where the judges had been sitting. A long platform held five ornate chairs covered in gold cloth, and on these seats sat the five figures of authority. Harry couldn't help it, as soon as he saw the looks on their faces he burst out laughing.

Dumbledore looked stunned, which was a feat in itself as the man never showed much emotion beyond his happy smiles whilst with the students. Karkaroff and Maxime both shared looks of disbelief as well as shock, although the former seemed to have a hint of fear about his eyes too.

Mr Crouch was again shocked, but he had managed to at least hide his with a mask of faint approval and boredom, something he probably did regularly in his line of work. And finally Bagman looked like Christmas had come early. If Cedric had been right about the rumours that the man had bet serious money on the Tournament, then Harry had a fairly good idea who he had bet on.

Before the judges could show their marks Harry heard a commotion behind him. He didn't even manage to turn around before he was engulfed by many different bodies.

"That was awesome mate!" Kevin shouted joyfully.

"What did you even do?" Hermione asked, the curiosity in her overriding her joy or amazement.

"Ask him later-."

"Professor Maxime's about to show her score," the twins cut in.

The woman raised her wand and seemed to hesitate for a second before shooting a silver ribbon into the air. It twisted and writhed until it formed a number Nine.

"Not bad," Harry was happy that he had even managed to complete the first task, anything beyond that was a bonus.

"Why not a ten?!" Neville said indignantly.

"It probably wasn't as dramatic as she wanted," Harry shrugged.

The Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation came next and he too fired a nine into the air. Around him the crowd started to cheer madly, and Harry grinned happily. Dumbledore gave him exactly the same result.

"I'm surprised he didn't give you ten," Fred shouted over the noise of the crowd roaring themselves hoarse around them.

"He can't be seen to be favouring his own school," Hermione guessed.

However that sentiment didn't seem to stop Karkaroff, who shot a measly five into the air.

"Five? You lousy piece of… You gave Krum ten!" Kevin roared indignantly.

"At least Ludo has your back," George flashed the man two thumbs up as the Head of Magical Games and Sports fired a ten into the air.

"You're in the lead!" Kevin shouted in excitement.

"Krum is second with 40, and Cedric isn't far behind with 38. Fleur didn't do so well," Hermione grimaced in sympathy.

"She's not badly hurt is she?" Harry asked in alarm.

"No, not at all," Hermione was quick to reassure him. "She tried to do the same thing as you, except it only half worked and the dragon started snoring. It shot a jet of flame at her and she had to quickly put her clothes out."

"Cedric did this neat bit of transfiguration and tried to get the dragon to eat the dog he'd transfigured from a stone. It worked quite well until he got close to the eggs and the dragon decided it would rather eat him than the Labrador. He only just managed to get out of there, I think Madam Pomfrey was called in straight away to help with his burns. He probably did better because his involved more showy magic, even if he did end up with worse burns," Neville carried on.

"And Krum didn't even think of flying!" Kevin butted in. "He shot some spell into his dragon's eyes and blinded it. As it couldn't defend its nest he got his egg quite easily, but they deducted points because the dragon blundered around and crushed some of the real eggs."

"Now that you have your results," Flitwick's happy voice caused the group to jump in surprise, Harry wasn't the only one to have forgotten the two teachers were there. "I believe Bagman will need to speak with you again before you leave Mr Banner. If you can head back to the champions tent?"

"Thank you Professor," Harry nodded and lead the way towards the fabric structure.

"Ah Harry, come in! Come in!" Ludo's jubilant voice had Harry wincing at the volume.

Before he recovered he had been grabbed by the hand and dragged into the middle of the tent. He spotted Cedric and the other two champions, Fleur in new clothes and Cedric with a thick orange paste on his face. With a kind smile on his face he wriggled out of Ludo's grip and went to stand by the other three.

"How are you?" He murmured to Cedric.

"Not bad, feel a little foolish," Cedric grinned ruefully, then winced as the motion tugged at his healing flesh.

"It sounded like a good plan, shame the dragon preferred human to dog meat," Harry complimented.

"You didn't do either of the plans that we worked out. But it was insanely impressive," said Cedric.

"To be honest I had no idea if it would work, and I'm very glad it did!" Harry confided.

"So, well done all of you! You'll be glad to hear that you have a nice long break before the next task, which is on the twenty-sixth of February at nine thirty. But in the mean time you should take a look at those eggs. See the small hinges? Inside is a clue for the next task, solve it and you will know what to do to prepare for the next task! All clear? Then off you go!"

"How is he so happy?" Harry muttered as he and Cedric turned to leave.

"Mr Potter?" a voice called out.

"Banner," Harry groaned as he stopped. "See you later Cedric."

Only once the three other champions left the tent did Harry turn around, and came face to face with the object of some of his lack of sleep.

"So did I impress you enough, sir?" Harry asked.

"How did you do that?" Cornelius stuttered out after some wordless fumbling.

"Simple, I just sang it a lullaby," Harry had to hold back a smirk.

"You can't sing a dragon to sleep," the minister countered.

"I take it you did watch the first task, sir?" said Harry innocently.

"I did."

"Then you saw what I did. Fleur tried to do the same thing so it wasn't exactly an unknown possibility to put a dragon to sleep," Harry said with a smile.

"Who helped you? There is no way you could learn of, and master, such advanced magic on your own," Cornelius blustered.

"I swear I worked that out on my own, and Professor Dumbledore can vouch that I only speak the truth," Harry flicked his eyes to the bearded man for backup. "But if that is everything sirs I would like to catch up with my friends. I believe Fred and George have been plotting a party all week."

And with the most respectful bow he could manage Harry slipped back out of the tent. He didn't run, he wasn't that eager to be away from the Minster for Magic, but he did put on a fast walk back up to the castle.

He had been right, and Harry had barely had time to answer the riddle at the door to the Ravenclaw Tower before he was grabbed and pulled through. The common room had been decked out in streamers, bunting, flags, and general chaotic decorations. Four of the study tables had been shunted together and festooned with more celebratory flags, before being ladened with enough food to feed two houses. Another table had been hidden by a selection of drinks, many that Harry had never seen in Hogwarts before.

Although there were a few miffed looks from some Ravenclaws no one really complained at the twins' efforts. The two were suspiciously absent though.

"They are down in the Hufflepuff common room, Fred said that they had arranged the same for Cedric," Kevin replied when Harry asked about the pair.

"How did they manage all this?" he asked as he kept gazing around the room.

"No idea, but if they can be this organised and sneaky, I'd hate to see what they could do when they focus on something productive… or destructive," Kevin chuckled.

 **Credit where it's due, the song lyrics are from Månegarm:Urminnes Hävd – The Forest Sessions. The song is called Vaggvisa**


	61. Chapter 61 - Legacy of a Bygone Age

**A/N: I'm quite pleased that I've managed to churn out a couple of chapters for you guys this week. I have three in reserve, which brings me to the end of the fourth year... and to a point where I am going to let you have your say.**

 **DOES CEDRIC LIVE OR DIE?**

 **Leave your opinion in a review, or a pm, and I will listen to your thoughts. I have already written one outcome, and I am not guaranteeing that I will change it, but I am happy to listen to you all.**

 **As always, thank you so much for reading my story. And double thanks to anyone who follows/favourites/reviews.**

* * *

 **Chapter Sixty One – Legacy of a Bygone Age**

The exhilaration from being one third of the way through the tournament carried Harry on for a good week after the event. The entire Ravenclaw tower had partied well into the Friday morning, despite the lessons that they were going to have to sit through later on. Indeed they only stopped at three in the morning because Professor Flitwick appeared and made them go to bed. Harry had staggered to his bed, giddy with exhaustion and exhilaration, and had passed out fully clothed.

They next morning he woke up, still covered in sweat and still hungry enough to eat two plates of food. At the party he had eaten anything passed to him, but that apparently hadn't made up for all the energy he burnt that day worrying.

As he shuffled down the stairs, sweeping his still damp hair from his face, he spotted the golden egg sitting innocently on the coffee table by the still crackling fire. Temptation had him almost opening the egg there and then, however he stopped at the last minute. He didn't know what the clue inside could be, and he didn't want to risk waking up the entire tower an hour early. So he settled in the large comfy armchair and closely inspected the egg, rolling it slowly round in his hands.

It was only on the Sunday morning, when the seven of them gathered for their regular meeting in the Room of Requirement, that they finally found out what was in the egg. Harry opened his first, and slammed it shut after two seconds of the ear-piercing shrieking.

"Do you want to go next?" Harry said with a pained grin to Cedric.

"I think the judges will probably have given us the same clue, I'll pass," he replied and gingerly set his egg down.

"I'm glad I've been careful with that thing," Harry put his down on the same table and stared at them. "So, any ideas?"

"Well it could be anything," Kevin huffed.

"At least we can rule out dragons," Cedric chuckled.

"I think eggs would be a good indicator, I wouldn't think they would leave a clue in an unrelated shape," Hermione ventured.

"It did blend in better looking like a dragon egg than being a centaur statue," Kevin countered.

"They made it gold," Harry pointed out.

"It was easier to see?" Kevin didn't sound so convinced anymore.

"But it is better than nothing," Cedric came to his rescue. "So, something that is born from eggs."

"I think we need books," Hermione's eyes lit up with joy, and almost seemed to glow with happiness as the room responded to her will.

But an hour later they had barely crossed any species out of the magical creature textbooks that had been on the shelves.

"Come on, this isn't going to help in any way," Harry shut his book and sighed.

"Shall we go back to spell practice?" Fred asked eagerly.

"I'd love it if you could teach us that spell you used on Cedric and I." Harry chuckled.

All seven of them ended up walking around with randomly coloured hair for the next week, which earned them a variety of disapproving or exasperated looks. It didn't help that when Professor McGonagall announced a special event she was lightly scowling at Harry, sitting innocently with bright pink hair.

"The Yule Ball is a traditional part of the Tournament, an opportunity for us to socialise with our guests. The ball is open to anyone in the fourth year and above, although you can invite anyone you wish," McGonagall explained. "Dress robes will be worn, the ball starts at eight o'clock on Christmas day and finishes at midnight."

"Must we attend?" Neville piped up.

"It is not a compulsory event Mr Longbottom, although we will be expecting a good reason for anyone staying over the holiday to not be attending," Professor McGonagall replied. "And of course we expect you to uphold our school's reputation."

The bell rang and was promptly followed by the clatter of stools on the flagstone floor as everyone got to their feet. Harry had thankfully waited until the initial rush of his classmates had left, which meant that when he was called back he had less far to walk.

When he reached her desk Professor McGonagall looked up from the stack of freshly handed in homework. "Traditionally the champions and their partners open the ball by leading the first dance. I would advise you to therefore find a partner swiftly, and not leave it to the last minute."

"Thank you for the heads up, Professor," Harry smiled gratefully, but then it faltered slightly. "Erm, how well do we have to be able to dance?"

"Dancing lessons will be provided to each house," she replied reassuringly.

Harry wasted no time in leaving to catch up with his friends to plot.

"Do you think they are staring because they know about the dance and want you to invite them, or because of our hair?" Kevin asked. He had been sporting a vivid sunset orange hairdo for the better part of a week, and had become as immune to the stares as the rest of them.

"Well at least being a champion means they are likely going to ignore my hair if I find someone to ask," Harry laughed as they sat for lunch.

"So who are we going to ask?" Neville asked.

"No idea," Harry shrugged as he piled salad onto his plate. "Who are you thinking of inviting Hermione?"

"I don't know either," she said, although from the slow way she said it Harry thought that she might have a plan.

Harry was proven right, and within a week he had had six separate offers from girls he had never properly met before. He tried to be gracious as possible as he declined each offer. A few his peers agreed with, but some others they couldn't understand.

"But she is beautiful," Terry protested as Harry turned away from a sixth year Hufflepuff, the latest rejected suitor.

"And I would have nothing to talk to her about for four hours," Harry countered.

"So?" Michael said.

"If you want her, go get her," Harry clapped Michael on the back and laughed as his friend blanched slightly.

In the end the dilemma was solved pretty quickly as the Ravenclaws headed to lunch. Harry led the way into the hall, and managed to time it so that he reached the door as the Beauxbaton delegation entered the entrance hall.

"I wonder…" Harry muttered, and before anyone could react he dodged around his friends and headed towards the women.

"Madamoiselle Delacour, voulez-vous aller au bau avec moi?" Harry asked as soon as he reached the leader of the group.

Fleur paused for a second, looking Harry up and down. On second thought Harry admitted he could have made a better attempt at tidying himself up before a proposal. His robes were slightly skewwhiff and his hair had started to fade to a black tinted pink. However he stood straight and kept the cheery look on his face, knowing that he wasn't a bad choice for a compulsory dance. He was a few inches taller than her too, so she would be able to wear heels without worry. Harry almost laughed at remembering that little snippet from Pepper and Natasha arguing with Tony at their first Christmas.

"Oui, I will," Fleur's response jerked Harry out of his accidental trip down memory lane.

"Brilliant! Shall I meet you at your carriage and walk you up?" Harry couldn't wipe the smile from his face as he offered.

"Okay," Fleur smiled indulgently at Harry as they broke up to continue with their day.

"You jammy git," Kevin said eventually once they had all sat down and the surprise finished sinking in.

"What can I say, Luck owed me some good fortune," said the champion.

The news of the pair going to the ball together spread like wildfire, and Harry found himself the source of many disappointed sighs. It surprised him that he felt guilty, but ignored it in preference of spending his free time trying to figure out the egg. He had written to his family to keep them updated, but even Tony was stumped by what the egg could belong to. So whilst he pondered he practiced Loki's magic, completed his homework, and tried to brush up on his dancing.

Christmas day slowly arrived, apparently too slowly for some who could be heard counting down the last days of school at each breakfast. Harry was quite content to just see the day through like any other, but his friends wouldn't allow it. Harry was for once woken by Kevin throwing a pillow at his face at five in the morning, in order for them to all open their presents together.

Various friends had left small gifts of sweets, which Harry had reciprocated, and his family had sent an eclectic mix of books, clothing, and weapons. The black dagger, with a wickedly sharp six inch blade and, in an elegant leather sheath was something Harry doubted he would ever have received if Bruce had been around to vet the gifts. The thought caused him a pang of guilt before he pushed it away and tied the blade to his leg, as the attached note suggested. Harry snorted as the thought crossed his mind that soon he wouldn't have a single limb not adorned by something from his family. The cheery blue lights of his tracking bracelet seemed to wink in agreement at him.

After an early breakfast of their usual toast and juice, whilst being showered with fake snow that dissipated on contact, the Ravenclaw boys headed out to the grounds. It had been the talk of all the tables that an epic battle had already started, and Terry and Kevin had convinced them all to join in.

Harry had barely had time to reach the lawn before he had a snowball collide with the side of his head. The almost school-girl giggle that accompanied it told him who was the culprit, and helped him retaliate.

Not even ten minutes later Harry was sat in a rudimentary fort balling up snowballs and passing them to the twins who were bombarding Kevin's team and their fort.

"Incoming!" Fred yelled and the three ducked as a huge avalanche of snow fell on them.

"Hey, that's cheating!" Harry spluttered as he finally worked his head to the surface.

"No it's not," he heard Kevin shout above the various voices laughing at them.

"Sorry, couldn't resist," Cedric laughed as he offered a hand to Harry.

Harry got his revenge by tugging Cedric down into the pile of snow before shoving a handful of it down the back of the older boy's robes.

The battle after that became rather uneven, as Ron and his Gryffindor friends joined in against the four, who were still fighting the Ravenclaws. The addition of some of Cedric's house mates, and some of the Gryffindor Quidditch team evened the odds. By the end the three camps were cold, tired, and wet, and laughing too hard to actually throw straight.

Aided by the lack of light the battle was ended in a draw and everyone piled back inside to get ready. It was pretty obvious that the women had already been getting ready for a while when they traipsed back into the common room. Despite the closed doors and distance, the shared area still smelled of perfume and hair sprays. Harry shook his head in exasperation and slumped in front of the fire for a while to warm up and dry off. Although some of his friends had used charms Harry much preferred letting time do the work for him, and he didn't have to worry so much about getting ready. Whilst Terry was running around trying to figure out how to get the creases out of his dress robes Harry was happy knowing his had been freshly laundered and hung up ready.

With just over half an hour until he had to meet Fleur he finally rose from the fire and quickly threw his robes on. Tony had ordered them for him, and not for the first time was Harry impressed and happy with his choice. His outfit was predominantly black, with a green lining to the waistcoat and a green trim on the robe. The bowtie pretty much matched the one Bruce had worn at their first Christmas meal. With a crisp white shirt, sleek black shoes, and his hair finally tamed into its usual sleek spiky look Harry admitted that he brushed up well.

He had timed it perfectly, and had just the right amount of time to head down to the grounds to escort Fleur to the dance.

"How do you do that?" Kevin asked as he strolled by his bed.

"Practice and a complete lack of care," Harry replied as he left his friend struggling with his bowtie.

The corridors were empty as Harry headed towards the grounds, for which he was grateful. He would have loved to have the day to himself to relax and rest, not that the chaotic snowball fight hadn't been fun. So the few minutes alone he relished and soaked in the silence.

Snow had started to fall upon the grounds once more, slowly hiding the trampled footprints and scraped snow from earlier. Random mounds still denoted where forts and walls had been created for shelter in the earlier melee. In the distance the yellow lights from the Durmstrang ship illuminated the frozen lake, whilst closer the Beauxbaton carriage created a halo of light in the white snow.

Before Harry knocked on the door he suddenly realised that he was underprepared for the night, in that he hadn't thought to bring a gift. After a frantic and fruitless search through his empty pockets Harry searched around and finally hit on an idea, and reached for some snow.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

"Fleur, your date iz here!" the equally stunning woman called into the carriage after answering Harry's knock.

Before he even had time to thank her she had disappeared into the depths of the carriage, leaving the door open and Harry standing in the snow. He couldn't see much of the interior of the carriage, but from what he could make out it looked like it was almost as grand and spacious as a manor house inside. The room he could see looked like an entrance hall, complete with oak panelled walls, portraits, and candelabras on huge wooden tables.

After five minutes of waiting Harry was starting to worry he had been duped, when he finally saw movement again. Fleur seemed to float towards him through the gloom, her silver grey robes complimenting her pale hair and features.

"You look stunning," Harry said in awe, before shyly offering up his gift.

"You look very good too, thank you Harry," Fleur took the dozen white roses and sniffed appreciatively at their scent.

Muted giggling from behind Fleur announced the arrival of the rest of the Beauxbaton delegation. Harry blushed slightly but Fleur ignored them, instead she conjured a glass vase to place the flowers in and gently set both on one of the nearby tables.

With the flowers taken care of Harry extended a hand and helped Fleur down the stairs into the snow. Although he didn't trust his skills enough to melt a path for the both Harry did cast a warming charm to ensure Fleur didn't shiver in her sleeveless dress.

The walk up to the castle took a while due to Fleur's high heels, but they managed to fill their time with good talk about Hogwarts and how their Christmas differed from Beaxubaton's.

When they entered the school, at the head of the entire Beauxbaton group, Harry found he was subjected to a whole host of stares from most of Hogwarts. Everyone had arrived early in order to meet their partners, so the entrance hall was rammed with people. Harry parted the crowds to allow Fleur easier access as they made their way over to where Cedric was standing. Krum was there also, but he had yet to find his date in the masses.

"Evening Cedric, and I didn't know you were coming with him Cho?" Harry asked as he took her hand and bowed.

"Cedric asked me straight away once we had been told about the ball," Cho smiled.

"I'm glad someone was organised," Fleur rolled her eyes at Harry.

"It took me a week to ask Fleur, but in all honesty I thought she would have already been taken," Harry admitted.

"Plenty of people asked," Fleur agreed.

"Who are you bringing Victor?" Cedric asked, as he saw the Durmstrang student was still staring patiently around the room.

"She will be here soon," Krum replied shortly.

He had barely finished speaking when the crowds on the stairs started to fall silent and stare at someone. It took a little while for said person to appear, but when they did Harry had to stop himself from staring rudely too.

Hermione had obviously spent most of the afternoon tidying and styling her hair, but it had been worth it. Teamed with some tasteful makeup and an elegant pink dress, she was understandably the envy of many women there.

"You kept this quiet Hermione," Harry chuckled as she arrived and joined their circle.

"Well Krum deserved some privacy," Hermione answered, then smiled up at her date as he gently draped his fur lined cloak over her shoulders.

"When did you ask her?" Harry asked.

"I found her in the library, she was researching some magical creature and we got talking," Krum explained.

"Which reminds me, I think I know what that egg is," Hermione said, before she remembered where they were and blushed furiously.

"Go on Hermione," Harry said encouragingly, letting her know that he wanted to share the information.

"Mermaids," Hermione said after a pause and a quick glance at Harry.

"How did you figure that out?" Cedric asked.

But before she could reply the doors to the great hall opened and people started to stream in. Professor McGonagall stopped them from following on and explained they were to enter as a group after, in order to open the dancing properly.

Half an hour later Harry flopped gratefully into his reserved chair. Whilst some students had rather reluctantly joined in the first dance for tradition, Harry had danced every one that Fleur had wanted to. Fleur didn't seem to mind that he blundered a few steps here and there, and he was secretly glad he did as well as he had. Looking around he had seen Parvati looking rather pained and angry as Ron stood on her foot once more.

The wide variety of options on the menu seemed to keep everyone happy as they selected their own dishes and settled down to talking. Although to start with the conversations were rather stilted and formal, as soon as someone mentioned Quidditch four of them immediately started talking tactics and matches. Hermione sighed and turned to Fleur and started up a conversation on places in France to visit, having been there with her parents a few times.

Harry listened to the conversations and laughed along at Cedric's tales of some of his unfortunate Quidditch escapades. Krum didn't seem willing to share any of his, and Harry had none to tell. Although Cho did finally manage to get him to retell his desperate catch in his match against the Slytherins. When he wasn't talking, Harry kept an eye on the rest of the head table, and the other guests. Crouch hadn't attended the meal and ball, and a ginger haired youth sat in his place. It took a little bit of search but eventually he remembered that it was Percy, Ron's older brother.

After the meal there a live band set up and the tone of the evening changed from a formal one to a much more relaxed and youthful air. Fleur excitedly disappeared into the close knit crowds to get a good spot near the apparently popular band. Harry however wasn't a fan of the crowds, so he decided to head outside for some air, and to psych himself up for the crowds.

The fairy festooned gardens, especially created for that night, were also being haunted by a number of couples seeking privacy. It only took an attentive ear in order to avoid them, and so Harry wandered freely without interrupting anyone else's night. He did hear Hagrid having a rather loud but private conversation with someone else. From the size of the shadows Harry guessed Madame Maxine, and quickly slunk away from their conversation on giants.

When he returned to the hall Harry made sure to get Fleur another drink and managed to tempt her away from the dancing. She didn't tolerate his stalling for long though, and the second Harry had finished his own butterbeer she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the crowd.

With the overwhelming noise and crush of bodies Harry almost panicked, but Fleur kept his attention on her and slowly he unwound. And he learned to dance properly as Fleur announced when the clock stroke midnight and the band played their last song.

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"Do you still think I am overreacting to the bullshit Skeeter prints?" Harry snorted in disgust as he threw the copy of the _Daily Prophet_ away.

"Not this time, this is incredibly private stuff she is messing with," Kevin agreed with a scowl.

"And my life isn't?" Harry said in mock indignation.

"It hasn't been for years mate," Kevin retorted.

"But seriously, I hope Hagrid is alright, I roughly know what he is feeling," Harry said as he cast a worried glance up at the top table.

Skeeter's article about Hagrid's true parentage, and some rather biased quotes from the Slytherin students, had appeared in that morning's paper. And it seemed that no one had learnt to ignore her lies as every student in the hall read and gossiped about it.

Harry's act of dropping his newspaper caused a few other students to do so, apparently also in protest, but most continued to read on. Malfoy could be heard chuckling over the article, and proudly expanding on his own quote.

"What happened to the Hippogriff?" Harry asked.

"Malfoy baited it, everyone in the class saw that. But he is a _Malfoy_ ," Kevin sighed.

"They killed it," Harry didn't need to ask for the outcome.

With his appetite gone Harry pushed up from the table and slung his bag onto his shoulder. "I'll see you guys in Transfiguration."

However his mood was not improved by leaving the room, mostly due to the fact that as soon as he reached the door he came face to face with Draco.

"Potter," Draco said, surprisingly courteous and formal.

"Malfoy," he said automatically in return.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, neither really knowing what to say.

"Nicely done in the first task," Malfoy eventually said before walking off.

"Well that was unexpected," Harry muttered to himself, his foul mood dissipating in the face of the bizarre behaviour.

However when he remembered the incident that he missed last year brought that back at full force. Malfoy had headed deeper into the school, so in order to make sure he would completely avoid the Slytherin Harry turned and walked out of the entrance hall. The grounds were plagued with even deeper snow drifts than on Christmas Day, so very few people had ventured far outside. Two wide paths marked where the students from the other schools had cleared paths to the school. Harry dithered for a few minutes before taking the Durmstrang path as it led the furthest from the school.

He met no one as he strode away from the warmth and bustle of Hogwarts, until he was surrounded by silence and snow. Flakes still fell from the sky, deadening any potential sounds and giving Harry the sense of isolation he needed to sort his head out.

Before he had taken much notice of his surroundings he found himself sat amongst the roots of a willow tree at the edge of the lake. Without any worry about getting cold, his foolish deal with Loki had seen to that, he flopped down and made himself comfortable. Although the branches of the weeping willow were bare Harry felt quite well hidden from any prying eyes. Not that there would likely be many thanks to the adverse conditions, but there was still a chance that a Durmstrang student might be looking out from their ship.

Whilst he mulled over why he was internally seething, Harry idly began chipping at the frozen ground below him. He had a legitimate reason to be angry at Skeeter and the other students, but his over the top reaction still scared him. But having something to focus on, even the simple task of chipping flakes of dirt from the roots beneath him, helped him to slowly calm and relax.

"Seems I'm more like you than ever," Harry muttered as he released a sigh.

He looked at the soil below him, and the dip in the ground he had created. At the time he hadn't made it far, only a few inches deeper, but if he kept at it he could probably create a secluded nook to hide in. It was only as he looked at his watch as he put his quill knife away that Harry saw that he had been there for forty five minutes.

"But which of you am I more like?" Harry asked the empty air. "I bet you were never late to class, were you dad?

He kept talking to himself as he stood and dusted the snow from his cloak. "How much trouble am I going to be in when you learn about everything that's gone on since you left? I hope you come back soon Dad, although I think we may have to make sure we are in the middle of nowhere until you get over your little temper tantrum."


	62. Chapter 62 - The Second Task

**A/N: Looking For Recommendations! I am quitting Facebook in light of the stream of depressing news coming from America (initial posting 25/01/2017 for future reference!), so if anyone has a favourite story they would recommend feel free to let me know! I will read pretty much any story from any fandom, the only limitations is the author has to have either completed it or be actively posting, I hate it when a story gets abandoned (hypocritical of me but I am working to finish this one and then my other).**

 **Thanks as always to all the reviews, favourites, and follows. By the by, I have decided Cedric's fate... you'll have to wait to see my decision!**

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 **Chapter Sixty Two – The Second Task**

"Ready?" Cedric asked.

"Sure thing," Harry nodded and took a deep breath.

Both of them were chest deep in the prefect's bath, eggs held in their hands. Cedric had suggested they collaborate on trying to figure out the clue in the bathroom. Harry, who had never been in there before, hadn't understood the idea until he stepped through the door. But he had dutifully dug out his swimming trunks and met Cedric at the door a few minutes before eight pm on January the twenty third, just under five weeks until the task was scheduled to be held.

The bath was large enough for all of the fourth year Ravenclaws to share it without touching, and Harry couldn't understand why it was built for just one person's use. The child in him, who had grown up in areas that were in the midst of drought, cringed at the waste of water. Cedric thankfully knew which of the taps to turn for water, and which for bubbles, and sorted out the bath whilst Harry stood and stared at the room. He pretty much remained doing that until Cedric reminded him of the point of meeting there, and they had both clambered into the swimming pool size bath.

They both dipped under the water at the same time, and Cedric opened his egg first as they had agreed. Despite the fact both of them were quite fit from playing Quidditch they were both desperate for air by the time the song ended. As the last notes faded away they both surged to the surface.

"Whoever sang that obviously has no worries about running out of breath," Harry gasped as Cedric sealed the egg and brought it up too.

"Well seeing as we have to go find them in just one hour I think we need some practice," Cedric glared at his egg.

"A whole hour… Do you know any spells that will help?" Harry asked.

"We've learnt one in Charms," said the Hufflepuff after a pause.

An hour later the bath water had gone cold and Harry hadn't managed to increase the amount of time he could spend under water. However he at least knew the words for the Bubble Head Charm, and didn't need Cedric's help.

"Are you sure? I honestly don't mind helping you with this," Cedric replied when Harry voiced his thoughts.

"I can't really feel my toes anymore, and this has gone from a relaxing bath to stewing in our own juices. I'll give it a practice on my own for a bit, but I'm glad to know I can come and ask you if I need hints," Harry smiled as he hoisted himself out of the bath.

"I suppose it is a bit chilly now," Cedric admitted as he rubbed his arms. "And it isn't like you need water to practice with, just talk to Fred and George for some dungbombs and that should be a suitable incentive to make it work."

"Ravenclaw's are rarely wrong," Harry quipped as he threw the Hufflepuff a towel. "Are there no other spells you can think of?"

"Wanting to outshine the rest of us again?" chuckled Cedric as he towelled off his hair. "Apart from figuring out your animagus form and hoping it is aquatic… You could attempt to transfigure yourself but seeing as that would be completely new I really don't think that is a good idea."

"Yeah I don't fancy getting stuck with a fish head for life," he couldn't hold back the grimace at that thought, while Cedric laughed heartily at the image.

"Well you may just have to settle for the same marks as us this time round," Cedric said.

"As long as I win overall I suppose I could afford to tie this time," Harry mused.

"I didn't realise you were so competitive," Cedric said. "Everyone said you only played Quidditch for the joy of it."

"I'm not normally," replied Harry as he stood and started heading towards the door.

"Then why does it matter?" called Cedric after his friend's retreating back.

"Night Cedric," was all that Harry threw over his shoulder in reply.

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"There's something going on with Harry," Cedric said as he lounged near the door of the Room of Requirement, waiting for the rest to turn up.

"Do you mean beyond the fact his body may or may not be changing-."

"Or that his biggest secret has been revealed?" Fred and George ventured.

"No, something more," Cedric murmured.

The twins, not known for the patience, waited silently for their friend to find the words.

"We were researching the eggs earlier this week, using a tip from Hermione. They're Mermaid eggs by the way, or at least made to look like them. Anyway, we were in the Prefect's bathroom and Harry was trying to learn the Bubble Head Charm. He hid it well, but he was incredibly frustrated that he didn't learn it in the hour we were there."

"So?"

"He might be good but that is a seventh year charm-."

"Even we don't know it yet-."

"Would he really learn it in an hour?" the twins replied.

"Maybe he could, but it didn't see like he was frustrated in not knowing the charm straight off… It was more like he was afraid of failing," Cedric tried to explain.

"The whole school'll be watching-."

"He's got every right to be afraid of failing."

"Not to mention everyone now sees him as Harry Potter."

"Since when has he cared about what people think of him? We know he enjoys a good game, but it's never been a case of he _has_ to win…"

"You think that something else is at play?" Fred frowned.

"Perhaps some kind of promise he made? A private one to his family, his dad?" George suggested.

"Maybe, I don't think we will ever know. But whatever it is, we have to make sure we help him win," Cedric made sure to make eye contact with both of them.

"What about you winning?"

"What about glory for Hufflepuff?" George, then Fred asked.

"It won't matter as long as Hogwarts wins," Cedric shrugged, ignoring the twinge of regret he felt.

"What about Hogwarts winning?" Kevin asked, as the group of fourth years entered together.

"I was filling the twins in on our little paddle, and how we're working together to make sure there is a win for Hogwarts. Whichever house," Cedric replied smoothly.

"Well at the moment it looks like it'll be Hufflepuff, my current plan for the second task is to sit on the lake shore and shout at the Mermaids," Harry chuckled.

"Perhaps we can learn the same charm Bagman uses for the commentary?" Neville suggested.

"Can you imagine using that on Ron?" George said with an evil grin, mirrored on Fred's face.

"Well that's the plan for today gone out the window," Harry sighed, but didn't protest as the twins started to rummage through the Charms books for the relevant page.

"Not necessarily, Harry would also have to learn fluent Mermish in the next four weeks," Hermione pointed out.

"Can I not just learn _'give me back what you stole please?'_ and repeat it until they reply?" Harry said with an innocent look.

"If I had someone shouting at me for an hour solid I would give them anything to get them to shut up," Kevin chipped in.

"Actually, twenty three days," Hermione said after a quick recalculation.

"Ever the optimist Hermione," Harry winced at the reminder of the dwindling days.

"Somehow I don't think even Dumbledore could learn it that quickly, so that charm is our best bet so far," Cedric said calmly.

As the oldest, and magically most educated of the group, the rest listened to him and slowly turned back to their studies. However it didn't stop Harry from looking for a book on Mermish, or from keeping the scrap of paper Fred handed him with the charm he needed scribbled on it.

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"Professor?" Harry said tentatively as he once again scrubbed a tarnished cauldron clean.

"Yes?" Snape said tonelessly as he graded another paper.

"I was wondering if there were any potions that could help someone breathe underwater? I was catching up with some of the Defence lessons from last year and came across Grindylows, and wondered how people would have been able to stay underwater long enough to catch one."

Professor Snape looked at him for a few moments before answering, and Harry knew from that that his ruse hadn't been successful. Snape knew he knew what the next task was, which left Harry waiting with bated breath.

"There would have been a few different ways of staying under water long enough to catch a Grindylow," Snape started off slowly, then his lecture sped up as he seemed to make up his mind. "Partial transfiguration would work, or the Bubble Head Charm. Both of these though can lead to complications, either the transfiguration cannot be reversed or the charm is disrupted when attacked. Researchers could have used potions for the desired effect, some can last a few hours which would be more than enough time to find and capture a Grindylow."

"And how easy are these potions to get access to? I mean, would they have just had to go to Diagon Alley and buy one from the Apothecary?" Harry tried to act nonchalant.

"In theory yes, but the costs are extortionate, especially considering you could just buy Gillyweed at half the price," said Snape as he finished grading another paper.

"Gillyweed? Where does that come from?"

"It's a European water plant, when eaten it gives the consumer the ability to breathe underwater and limited webbed feet. It only works for about an hour though," Snape explained.

"Hence the availability of potions that likely allow you to stay under water for longer, despite being more expensive?" Harry asked.

"You are correct," the teacher replied.

"I would be quite interested to study Gillyweed more, do you perhaps have any in your stores you would be willing to sell me?" he tried to seem unconcerned as they both worked.

"Perhaps, I would only have enough for one sample though so I would recommend you read up thoroughly on the plant before you consume it," Snape didn't look at Harry as he walked over to the supply cupboard.

It took a few minutes for the potions master to return, and Harry heard a lot of clinking of glass on glass in the interim, but when he reappeared Snape was holding a small glass jar. "I do not keep much of it in stock because it has rather limited uses in potion brewing. Five galleons."

Harry didn't even haggle as he searched in his robe pockets for his pouch before piling five gold coins onto the desk next to the jar.

"Why do you walk around with money in your pocket?" Snape asked as he swept the coins into the drawer.

"It's come in handy a few times, bribery and such," Harry tried to remain vague.

"Do I want to know? Snape asked drily.

"Erm, probably not," Harry smiled winningly. "Thanks for letting me buy this, I will have to let you know how my project goes."

"I have no doubt I will hear all about it," the man deadpanned. "Now I suggest you head back to your tower."

"Thanks again Professor, I'll see you tomorrow," Harry bobbed his head and quickly retreated from the room, recognising the dismissal.

As the weeks passed Harry was glad that his whim to talk to the mulish professor for help. Despite his best efforts, and the efforts of all of his friends, Harry just couldn't get the Bubble Head Charm to work for him. Hermione and Kevin had learnt the charm and could maintain it for the entire morning that they practiced together. Neville was as good as Harry, in that they could cast it but as soon as there was any kind of interference it failed. So either Harry had to ensure he avoided Grindylows, the Giant Squid, and any conflict with Mermaids, or fall back on plan B.

"Why doesn't mine work like yours does?" Harry whined as his bubble disintegrated after being struck by a minor jinx from Hermione.

"Perhaps it's just a matter of practice, and that you are distracted. Remember it took you ages to learn the summoning charm before the first task because of the stress?" Neville said in a placating manner as his bubble too broke down. "But I have a backup plan if you want to hear it."

"Gillyweed?" Harry asked.

"Yeah… How did you hear about it?" Neville looked a little put out by his idea being taken.

"I have other sources, but thanks for looking out for me Nev," Harry clapped him on the shoulder.

One week to go to the second task and some of the students had started to notice the sudden interest in the lake. Krum and other Durmstrang students could be seen taking a dip each morning, and the Beauxbaton group had started running laps around it. Cedric and Harry avoided joining them to keep some of the secrecy of the next task. Instead they hit the library at different times to avoid suspicion and to try to cram the last few bits of information in.

The twenty sixth dawned grey and misty, and surprisingly quiet.

"Michael, Terry, did you see Kevin coming in last night?" Harry asked as he groggily clambered out of bed.

"No, I think they had just headed off somewhere when we came up," Terry replied as he laced up his boots.

"Who was they? And when was that?"

"Hermione and Kevin, and it was about half an hour before curfew. I didn't think much about them going, you guys have practically been living in the library the last week so I thought they'd probably just gone to get one more book," Terry finished lacing up his boots and looked up. "Are they not here?"

"Kevin isn't but he might have headed down to breakfast early and decided to let me sleep in. Let's go find out," Harry put on a very forced smile and stumbled down to the common room.

When that room proved fruitless Harry headed down to the Great Hall, where once again he failed to find his closest friends.

"At least all of you haven't disappeared into the nether," Harry grumbled as he slumped down by Neville.

"What's wrong?" Neville asked as he spooned scrambled eggs onto the empty plate in front of Harry.

"Hermione and Kevin are both missing, they left the common room late last night and didn't come back."

"Harry did you see Cho in the Ravenclaw tower?" Cedric crashed into their conversation.

"Erm, no. Has no one else?" Harry quickly scanned the room to double check.

"You're the last Ravenclaw to come down, the rest haven't seen her," Cedric bit his lip as he unconsciously mimicked Harry.

" _An hour long you'll have to look, to recover what we took_ ," Neville murmured.

"What?" Harry almost choked in fear.

"Isn't it odd that the people you can't find are the ones that are closest to you?" Neville pointed out.

"Why are Hermione _and_ Kevin missing then?"

"Krum's prize perhaps? Who else has he shown any kind of interest or attachment to, certainly none of his schoolmates," Neville seemed to be coming up trumps with the solutions.

"I'm going to kill Dumbledore after this," Harry growled in response to that.

"Just keep calm until after the task," Cedric reminded his Ravenclaw friend.

Cedric returned to his table, and Harry attempted to eat anything to sustain him during the upcoming task. Neville surreptitiously nudged the coffee and tea further from their spot on the table and only passed Harry the pumpkin juice. His bad mood created an island of silence around them, broken only by timid whispers from some of the braver Gryffindors at the table behind them. If he had been in his right mind Harry would have found it amusing that the house of the brave could be cowed by one angry fourth year.

After ten minutes of angrily stabbing his cold eggs and now soggy toast Harry gave up and wordlessly stormed from the hall, his cloak billowing behind him. A gaggle of late first years actually jumped out of his way and almost collided with the wall to avoid coming into contact with the irate teen.

He was an hour too early for the next task, but Harry still stormed down the lake. He was grateful that they wouldn't have to deal with ice during the task.

"Yeah, just the fact I have to stay underwater for an hour," Harry snorted to himself before stomping down to the hidden nook he was creating.

As he reached the roots he drew the knife Natasha had given him for Christmas, which had a much larger and sharper blade than the small quill knife he had been carrying last time. Being a gift from one of the world's most deadly assassins the blade was going to be one of the sharpest and most durable on the market. So Harry held nothing back as he jabbed at the ground to release his frustration.

"Y'know one of these days I'm going to learn a blasting charm or something to help with this," Harry decided, still not caring that he was talking to himself.

And he carried on making observations and remarks to himself as the minutes ticked by. Students started to swarm past his hiding spot, barely ten metres away, but none of them noticed Harry as he was sheltered by the large roots. Even when he flicked lumps of dirt over the root into the open no one noticed. It probably helped everyone was too excited about the upcoming task, but Harry was still happy that he was left alone.

With only ten minutes to spare he remerged and walked the final distance to the familiar looking tent. Without looking at, or talking to, the other three Harry quickly slipped on his regulation clothing. He slipped the knife from his pocket into a sheath on his leg, along with his wand. The gillyweed jar he hid in a pocket of his shorts. He only turned to face the others to pass the time and to not appear rude to his friends.

"'Arry, what is it?" Fleur asked as she saw his stony face.

"Nothing, except they kidnapped our friends and used them as bait for us. Krum, you'll have to look for Hermione, Cedric has Cho, I have Kevin. Fleur I don't know who they would have used, was anyone missing from the carriage this morning?" Harry asked.

Fleur gasped and suddenly went pale. Cedric quickly grabbed her arm and lead her to the nearest stool. "Gabrielle."

"Gabrielle? Is she a friend?" Cedric asked.

"My sister, she's only eight," Fleur held back a sob.

"ублюдки," Harry muttered angrily, then started when he heard a chuckle from the corner. "Sorry Krum."

"No, I agree. If this tournament was too dangerous for anyone under seventeen to enter, then they shouldn't have kidnapped children for part of the task," Krum rumbled.

"Good morning Champions!" the gloomy atmosphere was broken by Ludo Bagman bouncing into the tent.

"If you insist," Harry replied.

"What's wrong?" Professor Dumbledore asked as the remainder of the entourage entered.

"Nothing, apart from kidnapping our friends and sticking them in the lake for us to go find. Does reckless endangerment not apply to the wizarding world at all? Seriously I think I had a safer childhood with an abusive uncle who liked to use his belt as a form of communication," Harry spat, unaware of what he had revealed.

"Everyone was asked if they were willing to be a part of this," Karkaroff said in a bored tone.

"And in any _civilised_ society children are not allowed to do anything without the written permission from their parents. Any of you have such articles to show that their parents are _informed_ and _consenting_?" Harry bit back.

"Harry, although I agree with all of this, now is not the time," Cedric said quietly as he moved to stand by the fourth year.

"But Cedric they-."

"I know, it's wrong, but it's been done and the only way we can fix this is to all go and get them back," Cedric said with a tone of resigned finality.

"We could all refuse to do this," the tent fell completely silent at that.

Ludo looked ready to cry, that his games were being ruined. The headmasters and mistress were watching the exchange warily, and Percy Weasley was flicking his gaze between the adults and the students.

"The damage is already done, if we don't do this then we may as well resign from the entire tournament," Fleur said quietly.

"Everyone is expecting a task," Krum commented, his professional side showing.

"Rome wasn't built in a day, protesting now isn't going to change everything. Once we graduate we could see about changing laws and stopping this from happening again," Cedric said reluctantly.

"I'm going to make you regret doing this," Harry vowed as he stared at the assembled adults. "Let's get this farce over with."

And without waiting for the adults he brushed past them all and headed for the lake. It wasn't hard to spot what they should do after exiting the tent, boats and empty platforms made their end goal obvious. He didn't bother waiting for anyone to accompany him in his boat, and Harry rowed himself out to the platform. Secretly hoping his childish behaviour would inconvenience some of the adults still on the shore.

With barely a minute to go before the start time everyone finally arrived at the platform, Karkaroff and Weasley glaring at him for his immaturity. Krum, Fleur, and Cedric joined him on the platform edge. Each of them were unconsciously mimicking the other, with their toes curled around the edge of the platform, and their hands futilely trying to keep back the cold.

Harry ignored the spiel that Bagman was saying, and only brought his mind back to the present when he heard the cannon fire. All four of them hit the water at the same time, although some of them made larger splashes than others. While the older three students paused to cast certain charms, Harry instead headed to the surface and immediately struck out across the air.

Although the others were deciding to search below the water for their hostages, Harry had a hunch that the Mermaids were likely to be nearer the centre of the lake. So to save time with his Gillyweed, and to be able to swim quicker Harry stayed on the surface.

"Point me," Harry commanded once his wand was on his palm. After a quick adjustment he carried on, heading south west to the deepest part of the lake.

After four stops where the wand only adjusted itself minutely Harry decided to take the plunge. He was glad that the jar had survived the initial jump into the lake, so he gingerly tugged it out of his pocket and unscrewed the top. The plant itself was rubbery and slimy, and tasted even worse than he expected as he chewed. After fighting down the gag reflex he managed to swallow the horrid mush and was then left treading water.

The sharp pain on either side of his neck caught him by surprise, and it felt like someone was smothering him with a pillow. When he felt the slits forming on either side above his arteries Harry put all the pieces together and ducked underwater.

If he was asked to Harry doubted that he would be able to accurately describe the sensation of swallowing water to breathe. He could have quite easily spent half an hour studying the sensation, but instead he gave himself a shake and pushed himself on. He apparently had gained webbed feet in the bargain, so heading down into the depths of the lake was an easier task than he had planned. Although he had to stop himself a few times to equalize the pressure in his ears as he swam deeper and deeper.

The light started to fail, so Harry carried on in the dark, hoping that once he had made it to the bottom of the lake it might become obvious where to go next.

What first alerted him to his proximity to the end was the faint swirls of music. It hadn't struck Harry that music would travel through the water like air, and he quietly mused about it as he swam towards the sound. The faint melody of the song from the egg was being played, or sung, repetitively like Sirens beckoning the Champions to their goal.

Harry almost didn't notice the first house he swam over, so intent was he on listening to the song and straining his eyes to spot the captives. It wasn't lit, and made of the same dark stone as the lake bed. Although as Harry stopped and looked he could spot a definite boundary line between the two houses, once more formed from the dark stones. There were windows, and a doorway, and overall it looked rather orderly and refined for a species that were classified as Beasts by the Ministry.

After a while he finally spotted what was apparently the town centre, it was more open and actually had Merpeople swimming around. The area was lit by some strange glowing rocks dotted around the area in artistic clumps amongst the stone sculptures. And floating a few metres from the bottom of the lake were four figures, hair flowing freely around them like halos. Three Harry recognised easily, but the fourth was almost half the size of Harry.

Without a word Harry cut the rope securing Kevin to the lakebed, and then he quickly turned to cut the other ropes. Before he could get anywhere close though the Merpeople surrounded him and restrained him, thrusting their spears right up to his neck.

"You take your own hostage, no one else's," one of the Merpeople hissed at him.

"They are all my friends, I'm not leaving here without them," Harry glared back.

"But only he is your prize, the others will be returned later," the same Merperson replied.

"This is insane," Harry muttered as he sliced through the kelp rope and freed Kevin.

Without a backward glance he kicked off from the floor and used his enhanced webbed feet to kick to the surface, dragging Kevin with him. Slowly the eerie but alluring song faded, and gradually the water began to lighten as they neared the surface.

The bite of the frigid air was doubly painful for Harry, as it clamped his gills shut and blocked his efforts to breathe. Kevin awoke as soon as his face hit fresh air, and he quickly shook his wet hair out of his eyes before looking around.

"Harry, when did you grow gills?" Kevin asked as he stared at the six slits in his friend's throat.

Harry merely shook his head to ward off the questions, and pointed to the distant piers where the crowds were waiting. He then pointed to Kevin and then back to the crowds.

"You want me to go to the judges… You're going back?" Kevin caught on quickly.

Harry nodded.

"You were first there?" again, a nod answered.

"Be careful, I don't know how you got those gills, but don't drown," Kevin grinned and set off with a steady breast stroke towards the rest of the school.

Although he had barely been doing it for half an hour, to be able to swallow a mouthful of water and breathe again was a welcomed sensation. Harry paused to take a few breaths before kicking off again and heading down to the settlement below. On the way he almost collided with Cedric as the Hufflepuff headed to the surface.

"Gills? Nice move Harry," Cedric's voice came out distorted thanks to the bubble around his head.

"It was something different, and more reliable," Harry shrugged. "Any sign of Viktor or Fleur?"

"Not when I was down there," Cedric replied as he hoisted Cho's limp arm in his grip.

"I'm going to go and wait the hour out, then I'll bring the others up," Harry informed his friend. "Want a boost up?"

Harry's push of Cedric's foot gave the elder a small jolt upwards, whilst Harry sank a foot lower.

Eventually Harry set eyes on the gloomy conglomeration of buildings, with the remaining two 'prizes' tethered to the lake bed. The merpeople were still swimming around the town centre, singing their song, although a small crowd had gathered. Apparently visitors were rare, as a few tiny individuals that Harry guessed were children were pointing at him and chattering to each other. Harry pointedly ignored the stares in favour of trying to scan the gloom around them for his rivals.

It didn't take him long to realise how futile the staring plan was, with so many angles to approach from Harry wouldn't likely spot them until too late. So instead he decided to try and help them out.

" _Lumos Solem!_ " Harry muttered, before shielding his eyes from the harsh glare that shot from his wand.

With his wand now light up like a beacon, Harry slowly span in a circle, becoming a crude lighthouse.

 _"What is he doing?"_ Harry heard someone below mutter to another.

 _"Making sure innocents are gotten out of danger,"_ Harry shot back.

He was so intent on spinning that he didn't realise that his response had shocked those in earshot into silence. He did, however, appreciate the silence after as he slowly rotated, carried on searching, and tried to keep track of the time. Although he knew that they had started the task at 9.30, he didn't really look for when he had eaten the gillyweed, so he had an unknown amount of time left underwater. If neither of the other champions arrived by 10.45, Harry had decided that he would just take the other two and go.

Krum's arrival into the square was sudden and quite surprising. The half transfiguration compromise the Durmstrang student had achieved was practical, smart, and shocking. Harry stopped to stare at him, however Krum didn't pause as he swam in. One bite of his jagged teeth had the rope in shreds and he was off heading to the surface. A quick check of his watch told Harry that Krum would likely return five minutes out of the time limit.

Harry turned back to his surroundings. Where was Fleur?

His own set limit came around slowly, and Harry decided to act. A quick flick of his wand slit the rope again, and he swam down to Gabrielle. Although the Merpeople turned to him, he brandished his wand and they thankfully retreated.

Ascending with Gabrielle was slightly easier than with Kevin, thanks to her smaller stature. But the relief didn't last long as Harry felt his feet start shrinking, and he started to become aware of how wet the water passing through his mouth was. The last twenty metres to the surface was an effort, and the last ten metres was done without air.

Harry was starting to see blackspots in his vision by the time his head broke surface. Gabrielle reacted with almost exactly the same as Kevin, except when her hair was out of her face she stared at Harry uncertainly.

"Bonjour, je m'appelle Harry. Êtes-vous Gabrielle?" Harry asked.

"Oui. Où est Fleur?" Gabrielle replied as she looked around anxiously.

"We'll find her, I think she is probably over there," Harry switched back to his native language and hoped that Gabrielle could understand.

"Okay, can we go please?"

Gabrielle couldn't swim as well as Kevin, so Harry ended up swimming with one arm whilst he gently tugged on her robes with his other. The trip back to the stands was long, and despite being quite fit anyway Harry felt himself tiring.

By the time they reached the other champions Harry had little energy to do more than drag Gabrielle forward so that Fleur could frantically pull her from the water and into an embrace. All the while she rattled on about Grindylows, and bad judgement, and how worried she had been for her little sister. Gabrielle didn't reply, but from the way she gripped both the fluffy towel and her sister tightly, Harry could see she hadn't been too happy.

An arm descending into his vision brought Harry back to reality, and he gratefully accepted the assistance from Cedric and Kevin.

"Glad to see you didn't drown," Kevin said as he passed his friend a towel.

"I knew my limits," Harry said tiredly.

He quickly wrapped the towel around himself to ward off the cold wind cutting across the lake. However once he was on his feet he didn't wait with the others, and instead headed towards a boat moored nearby.

"Where are you going Mr Potter?" Dumbledore's voice called from over the heads of the champions.

"I've done your task, now I'm going to bed," Harry called back without stopping.

"But what about your score?" Hermione asked.

"I know my limits, and hanging around with people who think it is okay to pressure children into risking drowning for a game is beyond them. Tell me my score later, I'm going to bed," Harry shot back as he sat in the boat and pulled the oars from their storage.

"Harry my boy, I really do feel that you haven't thought this through. We had many measures in place to protect those who were in the lake. And Merchieftainess Murcus had promised to watch for any signs of distress," Albus tried to reason.

Harry stilled for a second before standing. A few large strides brought him out of the boat and up to Dumbeldore's face. With the close proximity Harry dropped his voice so that only the two of them could hear his words.

"Dumbledore my dear man, I really do feel that you haven't quite grasped how much my family have impacted me. I refuse to stand by and watch someone play with the life of others, even if it is just for a game. You treat everyone as if they are just toys in your game of life, and that they are expendable. If the final task is a repeat of this then I am out," Harry threatened. "You need me more than I need you, remember that. You better start proving that you care more about your followers than just how many you can collect."

And with the entire platform watching him Harry stormed back to his boat. As he settled on the seat once more he flicked an annoying beetle from his shoulder before quickly retreating from the lake. His anger at the organisers of the tournament lent him enough energy to get back to the shore before he slowed and shuffled through the castle. He barely had the energy for a shower before he collapsed into bed once more, and quickly fell asleep.


	63. Chapter 63 - Acting Out

**A/N: So, hey guys! Sorry for leaving it a month to update this, I have to admit my muse went awol and I had to go find it. I managed to corner it in an Angels and Demons fanfiction that's magically appeared on my laptop, and by the time I pried it** (is your muse the same gender as you or the opposite? I suppose it is me and my inspiration, so it should be a she) **from that document she had written 25K words. But now she's back and typing again! So thank you for your patience!**

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 **Chapter Sixty Three – Acting Out**

Harry's bad mood continued when he awoke early the next day. Instead of having to face his friends and try to explain his foul mood, which he couldn't explain even to himself, he decided to hide. It was still early enough that everyone else was still abed, so he had a few minutes to pause, think, and pack.

After a short pause a scraggly rat trundled through a hole in the brickwork just beside the Ravenclaw Tower door. It scurried along the edges of the corridors, wound down banister edges, and disappeared through unknown passage ways. Mrs Norris watched it pass right under her nose, a disapproving glare on her face, but didn't move to stop it.

Harry only reverted back to his proper form when he reached the greenhouses, and after that he strode on at the faster pace to the forest edge. It felt as if someone was watching him, and he unconsciously increased his speed until he was jogging through the first trees. He wasn't sure how far into the forest the map showed, and therefore whether anyone would be able to find him. So to be safe he kept up his quick pace until it had long gone time for breakfast.

A convenient looking oak tree seemed like the perfect place to set up camp, away from the forest floor and easily recognisable amongst the primarily evergreen trees. It was the work of a moment for Harry to sling a rope up to the lower branches and start to shuffle around the branches to find the most comfortable spot to rest in.

In his book bag Harry had crammed the assorted presents from the Avengers, the odd items they had posted to him on the off chance they could help him in the tournament. The rope had been from Clint, who had also posted his archery kit to him. Natasha had sent him books on edible plants, one on magical and one on normal, in case there was a survival task. Tony had sent more drugs for his first aid kit, and Steve had sent a book on defence techniques. The others had sent packages, but Harry had ignored them.

He left his bag tucked in the tree and set off, armed with the books on foraging and his bow. Fred and George had shown him where the kitchens were in the castle, and how to get into them. However Harry had left determined that he wouldn't owe anything to Dumbledore and Hogwarts, so his only option was to go foraging for his food. It had been a drastic move, but every hour he spent in the woods away from other people and the stress of the tournament soothed his angry soul. With only the sound of the wind and the birds as company Harry easily pushed his thoughts on the Second Task to the back of his mind.

As he set about making himself self-sufficient for the meantime, Harry was unaware of the stir he had created in the castle.

Upon awakening the Ravenclaws had noticed Harry's disappearance, but assumed he was at breakfast. At breakfast everyone assumed he had already eaten and was waiting somewhere, perhaps the library, for lessons to start. It was only as they sat down to Transfiguration, and when Professor McGonagall arrived, that they realised something wasn't right.

"Where is Mr Banner?" Professor McGonagall asked as her eyes travelled to the empty gap.

"I don't know, Professor," Kevin looked at the others in his house. "He wasn't in our dormitory."

"He wasn't at breakfast," Neville added.

"Well if he doesn't turn up he can soon catch up in detention," said the teacher, as she started to write on the board.

Her dismissive attitude was the same as with any late student, but in reality McGonagall was hiding her worry. It didn't take a master legilimens to notice Harry had been less than enthusiastic about the task yesterday, and that he had not agreed with the use of hostages.

It wasn't only his friends that had noticed his change in personality too, and the underlying anger that could flare to life at a moment's notice. McGonagall may not have taught the last Dark Lord, but she could recognise many traits that would be attractive to the man. And Harry's tempers were starting to become quite the talk of the school.

By lunchtime Harry had missed two lessons, and the news was spreading that a certain student was missing.

"Minerva, Filius, if you two would be able to gather the Head Boy and Girl, the Prefects, and any free teachers, to search the castle. Hagrid, I believe that you do not have any classes for the next two periods. If you could search the grounds as well," Albus ordered as he calmly speared a fillet of salmon with his fork.

To anyone in amongst the students, it would have looked like the headmaster was just carrying on some light-hearted discussion. So unbeknownst to the students, another casual discussion on the Ravenclaw table was following the same topic.

"Is there any sign of him on the map?" Cedric asked the twins.

"None that we could see. Neville asked us to check after their Transfiguration lesson. He's not anywhere on the school grounds, passage ways or empty classrooms," Fred replied.

"You're not echoing each other," Hermione said gravely.

"This isn't a joking matter," George's face was devoid of a usual smile.

"So we know that this isn't on the grounds, or anywhere in the school… Could he have been kidnapped?" Kevin asked.

"I doubt it, Ravenclaw Tower is probably one of the most secure towers as the school. The password changes every time doesn't it?" Cedric pointed out.

"The teachers would have surely thought of kidnap," Hermione agreed.

"Keep an eye on the map as much as you can, and we'll all try and keep an eye open for him," Cedric decided.

Silently, all the others nodded their heads in agreement.

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Unaware of the restrained panic that he was causing back at the castle, Harry was having the best day of his life in a long time. His hunting had been reasonably successful, and had managed to shoot a rabbit and forage some mushrooms. It might not have been a well-rounded meal, but Harry was pretty happy with his first attempt at being self-sufficient. He had built a fire and turned the rabbit on the spit, whilst the mushrooms were skewered on sticks and propped against rocks around the fire edge. He had used a spell to pour fresh water into a water bottle, and as he watched his food he sipped from it.

Although he was mostly keeping an eye on his food, he kept his ears primed for the sounds of approach. Any wild animal could be attracted by the smell of him or his cooking, or humans could still find him.

As soon as the cooking was done Harry climbed up the tree with it and sat on a branch to eat. To avoid overthinking his predicament, Harry made sure he listened to the birdsong around him rather as he ate.

The night wasn't warm, but Harry was happy enough in his cloak in the crook of the tree. In some ways he was more comfortable in the tree than in the tower, no one was watching him and the cold air suited him better than the sometimes stifling warm common room.

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By Saturday evening there was no trying to disguise the fact that all the teachers were being used to search for the missing student. Over the last two days more and more teachers had been taken from their duties to conduct more obscure and desperate searches. Saturday morning saw aurors being called in, as well as past professors.

Amongst the newcomers was a familiar face. Remus Lupin waved at a few students who called to him, however he was more distracted trying to control a huge black dog that was straining on its lead.

"I didn't know you had a dog," Professor McGonagall said as she shook his hand.

"I borrowed him from a friend, apparently he is very good at following scents. I thought it couldn't hurt, everyone's likely tried every spell in the book," Lupin shrugged.

"At this stage I think any new technique is welcome. What would you need?"

"Could we get something that Harry has worn, or his blanket or something? It needs to be something that would have his scent on," Remus said hopefully.

"Misty," McGonagall called, and a small pop answered her.

"Professor McGonagall called Misty?" the house elf said as soon as it arrived.

"Can you bring the blanket from Harry Banner's bed in Ravenclaw Tower?" the Professor had barely finished speaking before the elf had popped away. A few seconds later she was back again. "Thank you Misty."

"And thank you Professor," Lupin nodded and grabbed the bundled blanket. "Here you go Padfoot, find Harry."

There wasn't much chance for further discussion after that as the huge dog lunged forward down the lawn. Although the weather had been cold, it had been devoid of rain which meant the trail was still lingering. With the dog in the lead Lupin started to jog to keep up, and McGonagall followed on at her best pace. However she soon lost them in the gloom of the Forbidden Forest.

Unaware that they had ever had someone following them, Remus and the dog weaved between the trees in a roughly straight line. It didn't take them long to pass beyond the boundaries of the map, and soon beyond even the limits of where Remus had journeyed.

Their progression slowed, and the dog started to pace back and forth, its nose glued to the floor.

"What's wrong?" Remus asked.

The dog whined then huffed. To anyone watching it would have looked like it had understood and was trying to reply to the man.

"It's alright Padfoot, take your time," Remus said.

After a little hesitating the dog yipped and headed in one direction, human in tow.

Harry was in the process of stamping his fire out, making sure that he wouldn't accidentally set the forest alight, when he heard a scuffle behind him. Faintly, far away, he could hear something that may have been a voice calling. He turned towards the sound and was just in time to see a black blur heading towards him. With his wand in his pocket and with a threat immediately in front of him Harry did what was instinctual and threw out one hand.

The dog yelped as it ran headfirst into a blue shimmering shield and rebounded, landing a few feet back. It shook its head before looking quizzically at the scene, as if it couldn't comprehend how a boy stood inside a solid bubble.

Without warning it threw its head back and let out a long, almost mournful, howl. Harry winced at the sound, "Stop it dog, you'll let other things know we are here."

It stopped and looked at him with one brow raised. Harry got the odd impression that if it could talk it would have been congratulating him for pointing out the obvious.

"Padfoot!" the now definitely human voice was closer than before, and was soon accompanied by the thud of feet on earth.

"Professor Lupin?" Harry said in surprise. Then he did a double take. "Hang on, _Padfoot_?"

"Harry, oh thank Merlin you are okay," Lupin said as he burst into the clearing.

"Did you just call the dog Padfoot?" Harry asked again.

"Yes, why?"

"Because I know that name," Harry stared at the dog.

"That's a coincidence to be sure," Remus said lamely. "Now how about you lower the shield?"

The werewolf's request was followed, but Harry had barely lowered his hand before the dog lunged forward once more. Harry reacted quicker though, and for a second time it was thrown backwards.

"Enough, would you please just turn back again Mr Black?" Harry asked as he watched the dog stagger up at a slightly slower pace this time.

"You know who he is?" the ex-Defence professor sounded surprised.

"It doesn't take a genius to work it out," Harry smirked.

"Care to enlighten us?" the new voice asked.

The Ravenclaw turned to look at the once dog, and wasn't surprised to see the resemblance. The man had shoulder length, slightly wavy black hair with a neatly trimmed beard. He wore black trousers, a dark shirt that was possibly black again, and a red velvet jacket. Overall, for a man who had spent twelve years in Azkaban, he looked more presentable than the man who had once been a teacher at Hogwarts.

"Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs," Harry said and saw the two men wince. "Moony could perhaps be a werewolf, Wormtail would easily describe a rat, Padfoot has already been shown to be a dog. I assume Prongs was another animagus nickname?"

"A stag," Black murmured.

"Everyone has heard of the events of last year, how you were wrongfully imprisoned because of a betrayal by your friend. A friend who could turn into a rat. Puzzle solved," Harry declared.

"Now I see why you are a Ravenclaw," Sirius grinned. "You really inherited Lily's brains."

"I take it you knew my mother then?" Harry asked.

The grin on Black's face, and the indulgent look on Remus', suddenly dropped. Harry looked at the pair in confusion. "What?"

"I'd say we knew her well," Remus started.

"Prongs was your father, I was his best man at his wedding," Sirius began, then continued after a pause. "I also stood next to him at your christening… he named me your Godfather."

"You're my Godfather too?" Harry said faintly after he had absorbed that information.

"You have another Godfather?" Sirius sounded offended.

"Tony Stark, an American," Harry said shortly.

"Muggle?"

"Human, yes," Harry snapped.

"I was just asking," Sirius put his hands up in placation. "But for the record, I am Godfather One, he is Godfather Two."

"Is this some kind of competition?" Remus huffed.

"Yeah, he might have spent more time with you in the last few years but I was the first one," Sirius defended himself.

"So how come you two are here?" Harry asked in order to get away from the apparently very touchy subject.

"Dumbledore is getting worried, so he called in extra help from outside the school. Although the Aurors were useful in searching, Sirius knew he would be quicker in finding you," Remus explained.

"I've only been gone two days, what's the worry?" Harry sighed.

"Harry, you are the person responsible for saving the Wizarding World, and now that people know that you can't just disappear. It's like the Minister for Magic just going on an unscheduled holiday, when he comes back the entire ministry would be out searching for him."

"But I did nothing," Harry whined.

"You may not have actively done something, but there is no denying that you were the only one to come out of that conflict. That makes you special, and gives people hope," Remus tried to explain.

"I understand that, but I don't want to be some kind of figurehead," Harry waved his left hand at Remus when he went to interrupt. "I know I have to be, at least until Voldemort is dead, but it doesn't mean I'm going to go quietly."

"If there is any way we can help lessen that burden, then we are here for you. I may be thirteen years late, but I still mean to uphold my duty as your Godfather," Sirius said with a smile.

"Perhaps you could help us out by bringing down that shield?" Remus asked.

"What spell are you using anyway?" Sirius added as the blue shield dropped again.

"I'm not, it's magic I learnt on my year out," Harry said evasively.

"You can do wandless magic?" Remus almost yelped.

"Sort of yes," Harry shrugged.

"Show us some," Sirius sounded like an excited teen at that revelation.

Harry almost wanted to refuse, but when he looked at the man who was his Godfather he could see that he wasn't demanding a show. He honestly wanted to see something that he could be proud of his Godson for.

So he obliged, and spent the next twenty minutes working through some of the spells he could do. From conjuring fire in his hand, and the shield, to transfiguring twigs into glass roses. Finally he took a breath and shifted himself.

"Your shape is a jackal?" Sirius asked as he circled his Godson. "What does that say about you?"

"Jackals were important to the Egyptians, Anubis was the God of the Underworld," Remus said thoughtfully. "They are loyal, quick, cunning, lethal."

"A Jackal is good," Sirius complemented him, and the jackal flicked its tail as if pleased.

"But I thought you were a rat?" Remus remembered.

"I can become whatever I want," Harry said with a hint of smugness as he had changed back.

And suddenly the two were looking at an almost exact replica of Padfoot.

"Oh this is too good," Sirius said, before he too changed.

"This is going to be a nightmare," Remus sighed as the two large dogs bounded around each other, barking excitedly.

He watched them for a while, admiring how his friend's son had managed to almost completely mimic his godfather. Harry was slightly smaller and ganglier than Sirius, and a little more unsteady on his feet. Whether the differences were due to inexperience or Harry still being a youth Remus didn't know, or really care he realised.

Eventually Sirius began to tire and trotted over to Remus' side. He rather inelegantly slumped into a sitting position and panted heavily, whilst his features were twisted into an undeniable grin.

"Is the old man getting tired?" Harry asked once he transformed back.

Padfoot yipped in indignation, causing the two men to laugh.

"Thanks for this, I thought I just needed to think things through. But actually this has done me a whole world of good," Harry admitted.

"Well you can always write to one of us if you need advice, and we could always visit on Hogsmeade weekends if you'd like?" Remus offered. Padfoot's joyous barking in the background showed his approval.

"I would love that, it might be nice to hear more about my parents. And you can never have enough family," Harry said with a small smile.

"Then that is settled," Remus said with an answering smile. "However we now have to go back to the castle and sort out your punishment."

Harry's pleased look disappeared immediately after that. "Oh, yeah…"

"Come on, it'll be dark by the time we get back, and we don't want to make them any angrier," Remus waved his wand and in a trice all of Harry's belongings in the tree were in his hand.

The three then headed back to the castle, with Remus feeling very much like the only responsible figure. Padfoot merrily gambolled around, attempting to trip them both up and to lighten the mood. Harry dutifully trudged behind the werewolf, occasionally smiling at his Godfather's antics. However he couldn't shake the feeling that he was like a condemned man walking to the gallows.

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Remus' optimistic view of their return was nothing like reality. Harry had to stand there as he was lectured first by Professor McGonagall in the Entrance Hall, then by Professor Dumbledore when he arrived. Finally he had an earful from Professor Flitwick as he was escorted up to the common room.

For the worry and hassle he caused Harry was stripped of all privileges, unless he was eating or at classes he was to remain in the Ravenclaw Tower until the end of the Final Task. He also had one hundred points deducted from the Ravenclaw total.

Overall it was pretty lenient in Harry's opinion. He wasn't going to have to skin mice with Snape, or scrub the toilets for Filch every night. But it did mean he would have to be with other students every hour of the day, with no moments of peace. That was the hardest part for Harry, for although he had already spent the majority of the year knowing his moves were potentially being tracked by Tony, now he constantly felt eyes on him and whispers following him.

So to try to minimise the amount of actual interaction he had with people he kept his head down. When doing homework he started to spend more time on it, and often submitted longer pieces of work than necessary. When in the library, with a Ravenclaw Prefect lingering nearby, Harry read as much as he could on any topic to help him learn for the upcoming Final Task.

What made the situation easier to bear was a gift that Garuda delivered two weeks into his punishment. The package was bigger than the owl, and weighed twice as much. The small owl had to rest for the entirety of breakfast time before he seemed ready to fly off once more.

Inside was a mirror, slightly dusty and a little battered around the frame, but the pane of glass was still clear and untarnished. Alongside it was a small note, and instructions. Harry immediately followed them that evening, and was delighted to spend three hours talking to his newly discovered family member.

As soon as they discovered what the final task was Harry headed for his mirror and spent hours analysing spells and tactics with Remus and Sirius. Belatedly he wrote to Tony and the Avengers the day after, but reasoned that it would be more useful to get magical advice from magicians, rather than someone who had merely read the books.

And neither side needed to know how much or little he was talking to the others. And they wouldn't have known, until the day they met…


	64. Chapter 64 - The Final Task

**A/N: Sorry, I've been trying to update this for the last week. However our internet is really slow and useless at the moment! You can load Youtube and watch videos, but actually loading pages sometimes is just impossible!**

 **As always, thanks for any kind of review/favourite/follow!**

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 **Chapter Sixty Four – The Final Task**

Without exams Harry was spending even more time in the common room than before, and although he still hated being cooped up he had finally become resigned to it. And with just a few hours until the start of the final task, the sentence was almost up. The other fourth years were cramming the last bits of knowledge in for their History of Magic exam, whilst he was sitting on a window seat staring down at where the Quidditch pitch used to be. Now all that was visible was a towering mass of hedging that shifted and changed sporadically.

Hermione and Kevin had been useful in making notes of the spells that Cedric was learning specifically for the challenge. Whilst they could still talk together at lunch, Harry was missing all of their group practice sessions and any information they thought up together. Flitwick had given him permission to practice in the common room, with Prefect supervision, so that he wasn't walking into the challenge blind. With two months of practice Harry was feeling relatively at ease with the upcoming trial. No risk of drowning, no hostages to rescue, just the four of them relying on their own skill once more.

The morning of the twenty fourth of June dawned, and Harry walked down to the Great Hall with the Prefect in tow, as per his restricted roaming punishment.

"Last time you have to do this," Harry grinned at her.

"Well if you will go awol for two and a half days," she grinned back.

They parted at their table, she to sit with the other sixth years and he to sit with the rest of the fourth year Ravenclaws who had walked with them. He gingerly took a small portion of everything and was pleased to find he managed to clear his plate.

"So today isn't as daunting as the last two tasks?" Neville asked as he saw Harry's triumphant grin.

"Nope, I'm actually pretty confident."

He didn't say that his confidence came from Sirius' advice. Although the man's own experience came from the multitude of pranks they got away with, he had said to Harry that no one could judge him for what they didn't see. Or more accurately, he could do anything he wanted, and no one would know. Sirius may have used that nugget of gold in order to become an illegal animagus, but Harry could use it to work his own brand of magic. Because no one knew completely of his skill he had had to practice alone in the bathroom. As far as he could test, any magic Loki taught him could counter a spell cast by conventional magic, although he daren't try countering a killing curse. With that curse being illegal, Harry was pretty sure he could cope against anything coming his way that night.

"Banner," Flitwick's voice sounded from halfway along the table, drawing him from his thoughts.

"What have you done now?" Hermione said in an amused tone.

"I honestly have no idea," Harry shrugged.

"All the champions are gathering in the chamber off the hall after breakfast," their Head of House informed him.

"Thank you Professor Flitwick," Harry said, with a small hint of relief in his voice.

"And I have been given the privilege of letting you know your punishment has been lifted early, you will have today to roam the grounds freely before the task. I have also been given the less honourable privilege of letting you know that we are expecting you to adhere to the school rules this time," Professor Flitwick was definitely holding back a smile, Harry decided.

"Don't worry, I've learnt my lesson," Harry said meekly.

"Even if you did manage to get all our house points back in a month," Kevin said once the teacher had gone.

"Just goes to show how brilliant I am when I want to be," Harry said as he buffed his fingernails on his robes.

"You are so full of it," Kevin chuckled as he took it upon himself to dish Harry up seconds.

Although Professor Flitwick had stated that they weren't needed until after breakfast, as soon as Harry saw Cedric get up he too stood. Both Hogwarts students were followed by various good luck wishes.

"Are you free now?" Cedric asked.

"As free as a bird," Harry grinned happily. "Did Professor Sprout say anything about what this was for?"

"Nothing, I hope it isn't another interview," said the older teen.

"If it is I'll snap my wand now and be at the train station before the hour is out," joked Harry.

Instead of there being a reporter inside, the room was almost full with normal looking people. Fleur was closest to the door chatting with a couple that could only be her parents, Gabrielle tucked under their arms. Krum was in his usual corner whilst his mother fretted around him, chattering in rapid Bulgarian.

Cedric immediately headed over to one of the last clusters of people, to a couple who were obviously his parents. He had inherited his father's eyes and nose, but his mother's hair. Which left Harry to look at who had turned up to visit him.

And his heart sank.

Five people waited in the last space available, and two were looking curiously at another three. The latter were staring daggers at the former, as if daring them to stay.

"Well don't I feel loved," Harry said with false cheer as he approached. "This is what children with divorced parents must feel each Christmas."

"Hey cub."

"Good to see you squirt."

Sirius and Tony spoke at exactly the same time, their gazes turning to Harry. However they soon turned to staring at each other in suspicion.

"Okay, introductions are needed then," Harry mentally sighed. "Remus and Sirius meet my American family Tony Stark, Clint Barton, and Natasha Romanoff. Guys, meet Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, my English Godfather and one of my parent's best friends."

"So why didn't Dumbledore put you with them instead of with the Dursley's?" Clint asked in surprise.

"No idea," Harry shrugged, not entirely telling the truth.

"Where were you then when Harry needed you?" Tony asked in his cocky tone, obviously hoping to rile Sirius up.

"In prison," Sirius for once didn't rise to the bait.

"He escaped, Remus proved his innocence, and they got in touch this year," Harry filled in the blanks.

"And why didn't you try to find Harry," Tony turned to Remus.

"I'm a werewolf, I assumed that Harry was safer where he was. Especially because Albus said he would be," Remus admitted.

"A werewolf? Seriously?"

Clint's tone, to Harry, was one of interest and surprise. However Remus seemed to shrink as if he expected to be refused acceptance. Harry's eyes narrowed slightly at the assassins, and thankfully Natasha got the hint. "He's not offended by you, it's just we've never met a werewolf before. You look surprisingly… normal."

"Most stories and films portray you guys as being rather hairy," Clint vaguely waved at his own ears by way of explanation.

"Rarely do the books get the facts right," Remus said dryly.

"So although this is a rather interesting room, do we fancy going somewhere else? I was always told that it was rare to get sunshine in Scotland," Natasha tried to direct the conversation.

"Sure, shall we head out to the lake?" Harry started to shepherd the group out of the doors, and away from prying ears.

Initially the five were rather civil and cold with each other, which wasn't helped by Tony's ego being at risk. As usual, when he felt threatened Tony resorted to showing off to secure his status as a genius billionaire. Thankfully he had dropped the playboy status over the last few years.

"How did you guys meet? I can't believe that you were allowed to just walk into the school and announce yourselves to him," Tony asked Sirius as soon as he could corner him.

Remus was politely enduring a stream of questions from Clint, whilst the pair watched Harry and Natasha climb the willow tree he had seemingly adopted as his spot.

"Harry disappeared at the end of the second task, and didn't reappear for two days. I can change into a dog, so I came along to try and sniff him out. We ended up meeting and bonding then," Sirius explained.

"Why didn't anyone contact me?" Tony asked indignantly.

"They probably thought that with you being so far away that you wouldn't be able to help, and that he would be back by the time you got here. And I've heard from Harry that Albus isn't exactly in your good books. I think you are the only person in history to send the Headmaster of Hogwarts a howler," Sirius chuckled.

"It sent the message," Tony sniffed daintily, pleased that his idea was well received.

"He's a good kid," Sirius said with a touch of melancholy as they watched the black haired teen throw his head back and laugh. "I'm sad to have missed him growing up. I don't suppose there's any more news on his missing father?"

"None," Tony replied shortly. "We pulled Natasha from searching to be here for him today, and the rest of our team has been dealing with our usual remit. Wanda, Pietro, Steve, and Sam are in Wakanda at the moment. Clint has retired, but wanted to come along to support Harry."

"Who is the other guy?" Clint asked Harry as he noticed some figures emerging from the school.

"You'll need to be a bit more specific," Harry rolled his eyes. "We can't all see as well as you. But I assume you mean Cedric? The other Hogwarts Champion."

"Yeah, he's coming this way."

"Good, I can introduce you all," Harry said happily. "We've become quite good friends."

"No rivalry?" Remus asked in surprise.

"I explained everything to him to start with, and he asked how he could help. There's a reason he's a Hufflepuff," Harry said.

It didn't take the three newcomers long to reach the lake, although Cedric seemed to hesitate for a second before responding to Harry's beckoning wave.

"Hey Harry," Cedric said once they were in earshot. "I shouldn't have been surprised you would be out here. Mum, Dad, this is Harry Banner."

"Pleasure to meet you Mr and Mrs Diggory," Harry said with a small bow. "This is some of my family. My Godfathers Sirius Black and Tony Stark, and extended adopted family Remus Lupin, Clint Barton, and Natasha Romanoff."

"Quite a family," Cedric's father said by way of greeting.

With so many people around it was impractical to shake hands, so the group awkwardly hovered.

"Feel ready for the final task Mr Diggory?" Remus asked to break the tension.

"I think so, your lessons last year really have come in handy this year Professor Lupin," said Cedric.

"I'm not your professor anymore," Lupin pointed out.

"Harry and I have been keeping a list of spells to work on, I got most of the way through it," Cedric explained.

"I got about half of the way through it, in the end I prioritised the spells I thought would really be useful in a sticky situation," Harry admitted.

"You've been working together?" Clint and Mr Diggory echoed each other.

"Yes?" Harry said as if it was obvious. "A win is a win for Hogwarts, I really don't care if I win."

"Harry's a friend, I couldn't exactly leave him alone in tasks that are meant to challenge a seventh year," Cedric was arguing. "And it was his friends who told me about the first _and_ second task challenges before the day."

"Hermione did tell everyone about the lake," Harry shrugged.

"I don't know about you but I'll be glad when this is over," Cedric admitted.

"I am going to sleep for a week and never enter anything ever again," Harry agreed.

"I don't know, the Quidditch looked like it was good fun," Clint butted in.

"True, alright no death competitions if I can help it next time," Harry clarified.

Time flew swiftly by, and in no time at all it was time for the evening feast. The food was much more intricate than the normal fair, and Harry was pretty sure there were more dishes and courses. However he was finally starting to feel nervous, and paid little attention to the food. His family crowded around him on the table, forming a wedge of adults amongst the sea of teens. However his friends didn't mind, as they quickly struck up conversations with them too. Kevin immediately grabbed Clint, whilst Hermione discussed theory with Lupin. Neville was having a very serious discussion with Sirius, and although Harry was itching to know what it was he let them be.

In no time at all Professor Dumbledore was announcing the Champion's departure. As Harry stood with the others he saw that Clint was the first to start slamming the ends of his cutlery into the tabletop in a slow beat. Students started to pick up the beat too until almost everyone was doing it. As the four neared the doors the beat had picked up to an almost random tattoo, with people cheering over the top. Harry grinned and waved back at his family, Cedric next to him doing the same to his. A flash of white light told Harry that Tony had finally overcome the magical problem, and had snapped a quick picture.

Outside the grounds were silent and dark, almost oppressively compared to the bright lights and jovial chatter inside. Bagman seemed to almost vibrate with excitement as he led the four down the lawns to what once was the Quidditch pitch. All four used the same changing room, turning away from each other for privacy. In no time at all they were in their tournament outfits for the final time, and were nervously waiting.

"I have to admit, although I never wanted to compete in this I am glad to have met you guys. Good luck out there," Harry said to break the silence.

"It has been amazing," Fleur agreed.

"We'll have to keep in touch after this," Krum suggested.

"I've not regretted any of this," Cedric finished. "Good luck."

Bagman arrived again to fetch them, and Cedric and Harry led the way out of the familiar tunnel onto the lawn. The sound of the crowd was deafening, and Harry almost took a step back as he saw the riot of colours above. Banners with each of the four colours (or shades in his and Fleur's case) declared each student's allegiance, and looking around it was a close call. With the two blues it was difficult to pick out who was more popular between the all, but Harry was at least glad to have more than his family supporting him.

Outside was a gathering of teachers, each with a red star affixed somewhere on their clothing.

"We will be patrolling the outside of the maze, should you encounter difficulties then send up red sparks and we shall retrieve you," Professor McGonagall explained. "Good luck to you all."

Bagman arranged them in a well-spaced line all facing the one entrance of the maze, before turning to the audience.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament!" Bagman paused to give the crowd time to scream themselves hoarse. "Inside this maze our four Champions will face many creatures and dangers, as they race each other to the centre of the maze. There they will find the Triwizard Cup! Whoever touches it first will be crowned the victor!"

Once again Bagman paused to wait before continuing. "The Champions will enter in order of their scores. First will be Harry Potter!"

"Banner," Harry muttered under his breath.

"With a staggering ninety points! Second will be Cedric Diggory with eighty five points, followed by Victor Krum with eighty points. Finally Fleur Delacour, with seventy six points, will enter."

"Good Luck Cedric!" Harry called as Bagman started to count down to his entry.

"See you at the cup!" Cedric called back, causing Harry to bark out a laugh.

Further conversation was cut off as the whistle blew.

At a flat out sprint Harry charged into the maze, lighting his wand as he ran, and he disappeared into the gloom without a backward glance.

He didn't get very far before the hedges started to shift and his way back was swallowed by thick branches. The way forward was clear though, so Harry ran straight down the path until it forked and he swerved left.

He was running for a good ten minutes more before he finally encountered some kind of foe. Even then the threat was merely sentient vines that tried to snare and restrain his ankles. A quick blast of flames had them recoiling quickly and he moved on.

The darkness of the maze started to have an effect on Harry, and as he ran he started to imagine shapes appearing from the wisps of mist. A couple of times he paused and raised a hand, only to realise he was threatening a branch or the next turn in the hedge.

Because of the phantoms he started to get a little cocky, and dropped his guard after so long without an enemy to face. So it gave him quite a fright when he ran around a corner and almost stepped right into the pincers of a Blast Ended Skrewt. The monster must have been ten feet long at least, with the threatening pincers and long sting glinting in the light of Harry's wand.

Although part of him wanted to blast the thing off the face of the Earth, Harry knew that Hagrid was proud of these beasts. So he decided to spare the creature and went for a defensive method. He retreated a short distance before jumping forward again. The perceived attack made the Skrewt rear up and swipe at him with its pincers. Harry didn't waste time and immediately cast a stunner at the creature, making it slump to the floor. To be extra safe Harry conjured some ropes to bind the Skrewt in, making sure to wrap the stinger and claws twice.

He had barely run around two corners before he then collided with something else. This was a bit more friendly though.

"This maze is hell!" Cedric said shakily as he paused to wipe sweat off his forehead.

"I don't know, it's pretty easy," Harry chuckled.

"What planet are you living on?"

"I ask myself that every day. Oh by the way Hagrid's Skrewts are in here with us, I just tied one up back there," Harry nodded back down the path he came from.

"So either we are going around in circles or we are making progress," Cedric sighed.

"Either way we best keep moving," Harry suggested.

"See you at the end then," Cedric agreed and hurried off.

As he progressed further into the maze Harry did end up meeting more creatures. His favourite was a Hinkypunk that he pointedly ignored.

Something that was less pleasant to meet came with a lot of screaming and shouting. Flashes of light lit up the sky nearby, so Harry dashed towards the light display. However his path didn't seem to want to meet up with the other, and in a flash of irritation he turned his attention on the hedge and blasted it with fire. The small blast from his wand only created a hand sized hole.

The hedge was less resilient against a full blast, and a few seconds later Harry nimbly hopped through a wrecking ball sized hole. In the parallel pathway Harry was early enough to see Krum throw a purple coloured hex at Fleur. The Bulgarian had an unpleasant snarling sneer plastered to his face as he raised his wand again.

" _Cru-_."

" _Stupefy_!" Harry spat out quickly, and saw his spell whiz over Fleur's shoulder and hit Krum just as the Durmstrang's spell left his wand.

With the caster unconscious the spell fizzled into nothing before it even hit Fleur.

"What ze 'ell waz he thinking?!" Fleur shrieked, adrenaline obviously flooding her system and causing her accent to flare up.

"He wasn't," Harry said, and then added an explanation as Fleur's angry gaze landed on him. "Krum's eyes were glazed and unfocussed, he was under the Imperius."

"How do you know zis?"

"Our overly enthusiastic Defence teacher had us learning about it by casting the spell on each of us in turn," Harry rubbed his head ruefully.

"Who would do that in here?" Fleur looked around nervously.

"I have no idea, I doubt it was anything that was supposed to be in the maze with us… If it was someone from the outside then we can't be too far from the edge," Harry realised.

"I don't like this," Fleur spoke what Harry was thinking.

"Fancy going on together for a short time then? Two sets of eyes are better than one," Harry offered.

"Thank you," Fleur smiled and moved to lead as Harry bowed her on.

Going on together didn't last as long as Harry expected. He was thinking they would travel together for five minutes or so and then part ways at a convenient junction. However they were still walking together when they came across a Sphinx.

"I didn't even realise you were real, where did they find you?" Harry gasped in amazement.

"We do exist, although we normally prefer much warmer climes than this," the obviously female Sphinx replied. "Although I very much believe I am the one supposed to be asking questions."

"Ah yes, sorry," Harry said ruefully.

"There are many ways to the centre of the maze, but the quickest is past me. Answer my riddle and you may pass, or you are free to leave and seek another way past," the Sphinx explained.

"Ladies first," Harry offered.

Fleur stepped forward and listened to the Sphinx's riddle. Harry had to chew the inside of his cheek to avoid replying as Fleur worked through the question. It took her a few minutes but eventually she came up with the answer.

"A spider!" Fleur grinned happily as the Sphinx padded out of the way.

The lady hurried past before the creature slunk back into the middle of the path and faced Harry.

"The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?"

"Erm," this time Harry didn't have an immediate answer.

He looked at Fleur and she shrugged back.

"Well it isn't about thievery, unless it is wanted posters… Could perhaps be seeds if you plant them," Harry rubbed his head as he thought.

For five minutes he vocalised every thought of reproducing items, from plants to lies to fire. He hoped that his ramblings would catch with the Sphinx and give him an idea when he was close from her reactions. However she merely gazed impassively back at him.

In frustration he started to pace back and forth, hoping the slight change of scenery and motion would help.

It was as he was walking he gazed down, and let out a small cry of triumph.

Thirty seconds later the two of them were running down the path gleefully, aware that they were that bit closer to the end.

"Shouldn't we split?" Fleur asked as they ran next to each other.

"Unless you fancy vaulting the hedge I don't think we have that option," Harry shot back.

"Then a race to the finish then?"

"I'll give you a headstart," Harry offered.

"Winner buys the loser a dinner?" Fleur smirked at him.

"Any objections about going to the Muggle world? I know a great restaurant in New York… or Malibu."

"I've never been to America before," Fleur said happily.

"Oh you haven't lived! It's mental and nowhere like I've been," Harry exalted, twirling around and running backwards to better see Fleur's face. "There's food stands on every corner, the taxi drivers are mental, and there's more people than I've ever seen."

"It sounds horrible," Fleur laughed.

"Yeah but the city never sleeps, there are bars, live music, plays, art… It gets into your skin and makes you itch to come back," Harry tried to explain. "You'll see when we go there over the summer."

"I look forward to it," said Fleur as she put on a burst of speed.

Harry laughed and sped up to match her, "want to try again?"

Fleur huffed and did indeed speed up.

Because of that she was the first to break into a large open space, faintly lit by an object in the middle.

"Oh hell no," Harry grumbled and sped up to catch up with her. Although he wanted to be gentlemanly and let her win, he had his own concerns powering his desire to get to the cup first.

However they were not the only two to reach the centre of the maze. As Harry cleared the last of the hedges he spotted a yellow and black figure streaking towards them.

All three of them reached the podium at the same time, and halted to stare warily at each other.

"Well… this is awkward," Harry spoke for all of them.

"Anyone have a coin on them?" Cedric asked.

There really isn't a way of solving this unless we duel," was Fleur's suggestion.

"That's not the best idea we've had," Harry chuckled. "You've already had to do that once in here."

"What?" Cedric looked at the pair of them.

Harry shook his head in a silent command for Cedric to drop it. The older teen did, but with a look that told Harry he would ask later.

"Well we either duel or tie for first," Fleur huffed, ignoring their silent conversation.

"I don't need to win, you two sort it out between yourselves and let me know your answer," Harry said and deliberately took a few steps away from the cup on the plinth. Although panic flared through his gut at the thought of losing and having to face the Minister, he squashed the feeling and gestured for the two older students to argue it out.

"But you saved me, and helped us all with the last two tasks," Fleur protested.

"And I'm the bloody Boy-Who-Lived who already gets more attention than he needs. Please, one of you two win already," Harry snapped back, then softened his tone slightly. "Like I said, I'll buy you dinner in New York Fleur. I don't think Cedric will really want to join us at the place I am thinking of, seeing as he would be a third wheel, but I'll buy him a Firebolt."

"But winning this is a once in a life time opportunity," Cedric protested.

Harry groaned and scrubbed a hand through his hair in frustration, readying himself to argue down the stubbornly loyal Hufflepuff. However fate seemed ready to help out, as a weird rustling, clicking sound started to interrupt the silence. The next thing they knew ten huge spiders scaled over the hedge chelicera oozing venom and eyes glittering in the light of the cup.

"Acromantulas!" Cedric alerted them.

"Grab the cup, they can't attack if we've finished," Fleur shouted.

"Harry get over here now, we win together," Cedric ordered.

Although he wanted to, there was no time for arguing. Harry sprinted the last three metres again and grabbed the third handle when Cedric and Fleur grabbed theirs.

He felt the horrendous tug behind his navel of a portkey being activated, and the three were whipped away from the advancing Acromantulas. However where they landed was definitely not the maze edge.


	65. Chapter 65 - Face Your Demons

**Chapter Sixty Five – Facing your Demons**

Harry groaned and scowled at the other two Champions who had managed to stay on their feet. He rolled over and pushed himself to his feet ignoring Cedric's offered hand out of principle.

"Is this part of the challenge?" Fleur asked as she peered around.

"I highly doubt it, no one mentioned anything about a graveyard at the end. Even Bagman announced that all we had to do was touch the cup to win," Cedric said as he looked around.

Harry lit his wand and cast his gaze around as well in suspicion. They all walked a little way into the graveyard, searching for any reason for their presence there.

"We should get out of here," he said without hesitation.

"Do we reckon the cup will work as a return portkey? If this isn't a part of the challenge then would they give us a way out?" Cedric looked at the cup that they had propped up on a headstone.

"Can't hurt to try," Fleur shrugged.

They had only just reached the cup again when a scraping noise interrupted the eerie silence around them. The sound of metal scraping on dirt and stone caused Harry to grit his teeth, and he immediately wished whoever was moving something would stop. It only took a quick look between the three before they ducked low behind a headstone each.

Harry tried to get their attention and gestured to the cup. Fleur looked undecided and shrugged, whilst Cedric nodded towards the direction of the sound. As the sound of dragging continued Fleur chewed her lip, then nodded towards Cedric showing her decision.

With a silent huff Harry slowly followed on behind the two older students. The aim of their investigation became easier to find as a light was lit, and from the flickering Harry guessed it was from a fire. Fleur and Cedric sped up, and Harry did too, with his odd shadow. Unlike the other two he was wary enough to try to secure their escape route, hence why the Triwizard Cup bobbed silently along behind him. He made sure to keep it low enough, and made it dance around any object in the shadows so that no one would be able to spot it unless they were looking for it.

The graves around them were arranged in neat straight lines, well spaced out but still seemingly cramped together. There was a few broken ones in amongst the rows which caused them to spread out to stay hidden, but suddenly they had to stop as the graves ran out. Beyond the final line of graves there was a large area devoted to more extravagant graves, the type with tall sweeping angels. A few tombs also stood in the area ahead of them. It was in this more open area that the light and sound emanated from. Gingerly they all poked their heads around a headstone each to observe the scene beyond them.

A small human was using all of its strength to haul one of the largest cauldrons Harry had ever seen onto the flames. It was only as the labourer retrieved something from across the circle of light could Harry see that he was a man, portly and not very attractive.

"We should really leave, right now," Harry murmured as quietly as he could, whilst the sound of pouring liquid disguised their voices. However they had all ended up becoming a bit spaced out from worming amongst the headstones, and there was at least five metres between them each. As a result, his voice wasn't that quiet.

"I agree," Cedric nodded and shuffled towards Harry and the Triwizard Cup.

However his movement was fatal. The short man had turned and happened to look at them at the same time as Cedric broke from his cover and into the light between the headstones.

" _Stupefy!_ " the man shouted out.

Cedric was too slow to dodge, and fell heavily to the floor well in the open.

"Fleur, grab Cedric," Harry shouted as he stood and raced the five or so metres towards the woman.

" _Ennervate,_ " Harry heard Fleur say as she reached him.

"Kill the spare!" a harsh voice seemed to call from nowhere.

Cedric's awakening wasn't gentle, and he automatically grabbed for a solid object to ground him, the closest thing being Fleur. Fleur's back was to the man, so she didn't see the green bolt of light heading towards them. But Cedric could, and Harry was close enough to see the light reflected in his terrified eyes.

"Cedric!" Harry shouted, and reflexively flicked his hand towards his friend.

The cup responded to his will and shot towards the pair, faster than the bolt of green light. Harry couldn't tell if his efforts were successful as the cup and the bolt of light seemed to reach the pair at almost the same time. All that he and the stranger could be certain of was that they were now alone in the graveyard. Except for perhaps the source of the harsh voice.

Harry didn't have time to stop and think over the situation, as another flash of red threatened him with unconsciousness. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour Harry dodged the shot, and the next two. He couldn't help ignore the feeling that whoever they had disturbed wasn't aiming to harm or kill him, as none of the spells carried the dreaded green tint. His suspicion was proved correct when the reaper angel behind him suddenly sprang to life and swept him into its embrace with its stone scythe.

Under his breath he cursed himself for falling for the trick, only now realising that the man had intentionally made him dancing sideways into the trap. Deciding that now was a good time to stop playing Harry starting to focus on shifting into a small insect to enact his escape. Once he was free he could crawl or fly a safe distance away before teleporting back to Hogwarts, as long as they were still in the same country. However as he was about to complete the initial preparation he was hit by an almost invisible spell.

"Ah ah, no escaping," the disembodied voice called once more.

Frozen as he was, with both hands raised to push against the scythe, and with his face trained straight ahead Harry was unfortunately positioned to see everything that was about to happen.

Without waiting to gloat, the small man disappeared into the shadows and reappeared holding a small bundle of clothes. He carefully upended it, tipping the grotesque baby creature into the liquid in the cauldron. Harry's bad feeling increased as the light of the flames glinted off a wickedly sharp looking knife.

"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!" the man cried out.

The grave below Harry's feet split open and a fine mist of grey trickled up from the soil and into the cauldron. The mixture hissed and bubbled violently, a reaction that would have had Harry backing away gingerly ready to run. However the man continued to recite the weird recipe for this potion.

"Flesh of the servant, willingly given… You will revive your master," there was a moment of hesitation after that sentence.

Harry should have guessed what would happen next. The blade flashed down and the bubbling of the thick potion was drowned out by a terrible scream. Unable to close his eyes, Harry watched as the man picked up his own severed hand and dropped it in with the bone and baby.

"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken. You will resurrect your foe."

Harry was forced to watch as the man approached, bloody knife grasped in his shaking left hand. Despite there being no outwards sign Harry was desperately trying to break through the spell, to stop the grotesque ritual. His efforts were in vain as seconds later he was left with a deep gash in his left arm whilst the small man returned to the cauldron, grisly knife carefully clutched in his left hand.

With the addition of a few drops of blood the potion turned a blinding white, bright enough that the man dropped to his knees to better hide his eyes in the safety of his arms and the ground. Harry had no such refuge and was forced to stare straight into the light. Just when he was starting to fear he had gone blind the light cut off, to be replaced by thick clouds of steam.

Once his eyes had finally recovered from the light Harry was surprised to see an almost skeletally thin man step from the cauldron, and for his small servant to scurry forward to dress him in the previously discarded bundle of clothes.

Harry couldn't really dredge up much sympathy when an apparently offensive gesture caused the tall man to send the smaller one flying with a flick of his wand. Shortie, as Harry had started dubbing him, slowly pulled himself upright once more without a whisper of a protest. He didn't seem at all put off by the white skin, slit nose, and red eyes of his master, unlike Harry who would have rather looked anywhere else.

"Your arm, Wormtail," the tall one said.

"Thank you my lord," Wormtail whimpered as he raised his sluggishly bleeding stump.

"The other one."

Wormtail reluctantly swapped arms, pulling his sleeve down to reveal an ornate tattoo.

And with that Harry finally understood who the man was, and almost cursed himself for his stupidity. He didn't have much time to reprimand himself though as Voldemort pressed his finger to the tattoo, causing it to turn black and for Wormtail to let out a fresh howl of pain.

In minutes black figures started to appear out of thin air and move into a circle. It was obviously something they had done many times before, as no one hesitated when they headed to an empty spot. There didn't seem to be any visible reasoning for the order, they all wore the same black robes but with slightly differently decorated masks. Whilst he struggled to break free Harry made sure to pay as much attention to the gathering, in case there was any useful information revealed.

"Welcome my friends," Voldemort began, in a soft, slightly hoarse voice. It caused a shiver of unease to skitter down Harry's spine. "It's been thirteen years since we last met, and yet you all stand before me as if it was only yesterday. But I smell guilt, guilt that you thought me dead. Perhaps wished me dead?"

There was no warning before the Dark Lord started to slash his wand, causing grown men to fall to their knees.

"Did none of you think to search for your Lord?" Voldemort asked, his voice dangerously quiet. "What about you McNair? Avery? Crabbe? Goyle? _Lucius?_ "

With each name the man caused the stylised skull masks to disappear, revealing the man behind it. It was good that Harry was silenced, otherwise he would have likely brought the wrath of everyone down on him for shouting in triumph.

"My Lord, had there been any word, any whisper of your whereabouts," Lucius started.

"There were, if someone as incompetent as Wormtail managed to follow them then they couldn't have been that subtle either," Voldemort's bitingly cold voice silenced the aristocrat's protests.

"My Lord, I have been faithful," Wormtail snivelled.

"Indeed, you at least have proven your loyalty… or perhaps your cowardice. Never doubt my power again," Voldemort admonished as he once again drew his wand.

In seconds Wormtail's bloody stump had ceased to bleed and was encased in shimmering silver. The mass slowly formed into a rather conspicuous hand, but it apparently sufficed as Wormtail immediately stopped crying to stare in awe.

"Thank you Master," he shuffled forward to kiss the maniac's robe before standing and taking his space in the circle.

Voldemort turned to talk to his followers, but his eyes finally landed on Harry. "How could I possibly forget our honoured guest tonight? Harry Potter."

Now that he had been acknowledged it seemed that the Death Eaters were now allowed to turn and stare curiously at the teen stuck to the gravestone.

A flick of his wand finally released Harry from the spell. The suddenness of his freedom had Harry slumping slightly before he regained control of himself.

"What can I say, I couldn't really refuse the invitation. Especially considering it wasn't really extended until I was here. You do realise kidnapping is a pretty major crime?" he said flippantly.

"Wormtail said that you were known for a quick tongue," Voldemort didn't get half as riled up as Harry expected.

"It's a gift," he shot back.

"Like that inconvenient gift that caused my downfall thirteen years ago. You see Harry here is lauded as the one who defeated me, but it really wasn't anything to do with him. He is no more special than that pathetic Longbottom boy. What saved him was his mother's love, an ancient force that nothing can overcome. I didn't think to consider it when I last faced young Potter here. But now his protections run through my veins too," and to prove that Voldemort pressed a delicate finger to Harry's scar.

Apart from the uncomfortable proximity of the greatest psycho of their age, Harry found the act rather anticlimactic. Whilst the Death Eaters seemed to stand in politely awed bemusement, Harry started to squirm slightly. The man before him had a slightly odd smell, probably from the potion, and he wished he could get away into fresh air. It was as he wriggled slightly that the sleeve on his left arm slipped down, and he caught a glimpse of something he had almost forgotten about. In the split second that followed, Harry finally had a vague plan of how to get out of there. All he had to do was keep Voldemort talking.

"Congratulations, your chemistry experiment worked. I take it that is one of the many things that your jaunt as a overgrown baby taught you?" Harry asked.

"Once Wormtail was able to find the pitiful wraith that was my spirit in Albania, he was able to create a number of potions to give me back a body. It may not have been as grand as my new body but it sufficed whilst I researched a more permanent solution. What I just had Wormtail perform was a mixture of various Dark Magicks around Europe, creating the perfect solution," Voldemort gloated.

"So really although you berate and beat Wormtail there, he isn't exactly as pathetic as you make him out to be. He at least has half a brain in there somewhere to get all the bizarre creations to work," Harry countered.

"I do not see why you are trying to get him to turn on me, seeing as he was the one to turn your parents over to me," the way Voldemort said that it seemed that he was expecting that news to be a revelation.

"Are you expecting me to lose my temper at that? Perhaps have a little weep? I already knew," the teen pointed out. "Oh, and on the topic of revelations, Sirius sends his love Wormtail."

The small man blanched slightly as he looked at the ground. Harry grinned and carried on. "He says that now that he is feeling much better recovered than the last time you met. He'd love to meet up again, catch a firewhiskey together and talk about that small misunderstanding thirteen years ago."

"Enough!" Voldemort cut through Harry's ramblings. "Wormtail is my servant and only worth serving those greater than him. Which is pretty much everyone."

"Alright, sorry we stole your limelight. So how did you arrange for me to be here for this little get together, birthday party thing you've got going on?" Harry changed direction again.

"You may notice there are a few gaps in our ranks," Voldemort seemed only too happy to talk, and started to pace around the circle as he continued. "The Lestrange's are currently entombed in Azkaban, as true followers of mine they refused to worm their way back into the Minister's good books. Once we break them out they shall be honoured as the faithful ones. Three here are dead, serving and fighting for me before my downfall. I hadn't had time to replace them before my downfall. This one believes he can run and hide, a foolish mistake. We shall find him and make him realise his mistakes before he dies. Another believes he has left my services permanently, and he too shall see the error of his ways."

Voldemort then stopped at a very particular spot and seemed to sigh happily. "And my most faithful servant of all had already returned to my services. He is perfectly placed in Hogwarts, and was able to facilitate dear Harry's presence here tonight."

"He put my name in the Goblet of Fire?"

"Indeed, and was poised to give you advice to ensure you were best placed to get to the cup first," Voldemort added.

"He cursed Krum in the maze, and swapped the real cup to a portkey replica?" Harry clarified.

"I do not know what else he did in order to fulfil his task, but he was to make sure you reached the cup before the others."

"Why did you need me? Why not any Ministry official who opposed you? Surely anyone else would have been easier to kidnap than I was?" Harry was racking his brains for more questions to stall.

"The greater the enemy the greater strength I would gain. You may still be a child but your grasp of magic is equal to those at least three years your senior, as proven by your success in the tournament. And it is poetic, is it not? The source of my downfall is also the instrument of my resurrection," Voldemort smirked.

"Why did you go after me all those years ago?" I was just a child, my parents just soldiers fighting against you. There are forty students in my year, why not any of them?" Harry pressed.

"You parents had hidden like the cowards they were, it seemed like a good choice to make an example of Dumbledore's favourite couple. Your death would have served as a sign that no one was safe from my reach, or my power."

"Well you failed epically mate," Harry smirked.

"Indeed, but now that your protection runs through my veins I shall not make the same mistake," the Dark Lord said without a hint of anger. "And once I am done I shall send your body back as a warning of my return, before I take down the miserable excuse of a Ministry."

A wave of his hand had the Death Eaters spreading out to form a larger, looser circle. Another with his wand had the statue releasing its grip on the teen. Harry half collapsed, half crouched as he landed.

"I was starting to think you rather liked me as a new ornament," Harry winked at his enemy as he stretched. Now that he knew there were few words he could say to stall the inevitable fight, Harry aimed to anger his opponent. "Didn't know you digged the paedophilia thing too. Is it a present from Daddy?"

From the hushed muttering around the circle Harry knew he had finally landed a low blow. He really didn't feel as cocky as he acted, but if he was to die he was going to make sure he left a lasting impression on those around them.

"My father was a pathetic muggle, who returned to his miserable fellows and left my mother to die alone in childbirth. I am nothing like him," Voldemort finally seemed to be riled.

"Definitely not now, I think in any culture you would have been drowned at birth looking like that," Harry quipped.

"It is good to see some fire in you, Harry Potter. There was none in your parents as I slaughtered them where they stood. Both cried and pleaded as I ended their miserable existence. Perhaps you can finally bring them some honour when you die."

"Jokes on you, I'm living to 102 then dying," Harry chuckled. "Now do we want to stand here chatting all day, or shall we actually crack on with this duel to the death?"

Harry drew his wand and bowed with a flourish, and looked up in time to see the flash of green light spin towards him. It took no effort to tuck and roll under the spell. In an effort to appear normal he voiced his spells as he worked, even though that gave Voldemort plenty of warning to dodge or block them. While Voldemort continued with obvious killing or torture curses, Harry varied his between cutting, stunning, or disarming spells. The limbs that he aimed for on Voldemort also changed, making the man think a little before he dodged or deflected.

"Come now Harry," Voldemort chided, "surely you can do more than this."

"I can yes, but I hardly feel challenged enough to step up my game," Harry shot back.

His taunt worked where Voldemort's had failed, and he only narrowly dodged two torture charms and one killing curse.

"Perhaps if I moonwalk a bit?" Harry asked as he did just that.

Voldemort seemed to prefer to remain stationary as he watched Harry dance around most of the spells that were fired at him. The Death Eaters around them seemed eager to join in with the fight, but remained stationary as the teen and Dark Lord faced each other. Although Harry didn't doubt that if he stepped close enough they would shove him back into the middle of the circle.

Once again Harry added a little jig to his movement, and grinned as he saw the flash of annoyance flit over Voldemort's face. He ducked the next curse, something purple and unpleasant feeling, he spun and fired off a spell of his own. His spell crashed into and seemed to fuse with Voldemort's following killing curse. Despite both of them attempting to pull their wands away they remained locked, meeting in the middle in a flurry of golden sparks and white bolts of crackling light. As they stood there the bolts of light shot off and started to form a caged dome, separating them from the Death Eaters.

Once the dome was fully formed the sounds of those stuck outside faded away, until their shouts of confusion were barely noticeable. What took its place was a soft singing that slowly got louder as the seconds dragged by. Harry felt that he had heard it before and after a few minutes of thinking he realised it was Phoenix song. Why it was there he had no idea, as nothing about the situation was good or pure like the bird. However it was at least slightly soothing, and he took comfort from the sound before he moved onwards.

Harry finally admitted that he was out of his depth and comfort zone, and that his attempt at stalling had run its course. His plan had failed, and so had his courage. So he tried to force his spell onwards to make Voldemort drop his wand and give him time to escape.

However Voldemort seemed to pick up on his efforts and started fighting back. What followed were a few minutes of reverse tug-of-war, in which the one with upper hand swapped numerous times. Eventually Harry managed to prove his strength and pushed the ball of light into his opponent's wand. But instead of causing the wand to explode, or for the two of them to cease to be connected, what happened was their dome was filled with the sound of screams.

And soon a ghostly form started to worm its way out of the end of Voldemort's wand. For a while Harry couldn't figure out who it was. But when it fell to the ground and stood upright he finally realised who the familiar figure belonged to.

" _Fleur?_ " Harry choked.

"'Arry," the ghost said with a sad smile on its face.

"Wha-?" He almost whimpered.

"'Old on, there are more to come," Fleur said with a shake of her head.

She barely finished speaking before more screams were heard, and a second form started to force itself from the wand. This one dropped to the floor before standing like Fleur, however Harry didn't recognise him.

"He was a wizard then?" the old, rather grumpy man, asked rhetorically. "He killed me, he did. After breaking into the old manor. You fight him boy."

A part of him wanted to snap that he obviously already was, but the amount of effort he had to put into keeping the stream of magic directed meant Harry was robbed of his chance.

Soon another woman emerged, but again another nameless victim of Voldemort's wand.

"Don't let go now, they are coming!" the woman called out in encouragement.

He knew exactly who _they_ were, and a part of Harry wanted to let go and run for his might. The last year had been stressful enough, meeting _them_ would be the icing on the cake and more than he thought he could stand.

However his wand was still connected to Voldemort's, and there was no way that he knew of to escape that connection. So with trepidation he kept his eyes locked on the end of the opposing wand and waited with baited breath. All too soon more screams were heard and another shadowy figure started to form.

Harry stared at the tall beautiful woman that stood in front of him. She looked incredibly familiar, as if he had seen her before.

"Mum?"

"You're doing so well Harry, hold on just a little longer," the ghost of Lily Potter said with an encouraging smile.

Barely a minute later James Potter fell from Voldemort's wand and stood next to his wife. Neither spared their killer a glance as they stared almost hungrily at their son.

"You're taller than I expected, you were so much like Lily when you were born," James said with a hint of pride.

"Well there's a few things that may have influenced that," Harry gritted his teeth and gingerly flexed his fingers as much as he dared.

"We know, we've been watching over you. You gave us a scare in Africa but you've always pulled through," Lily said calmly.

"Africa?" Harry cast his mind back. "When I was a kid? That time I was ill and had a dream?"

"It wasn't a dream, you were so close to death at one point we were able to visit you," Harry could almost see the tears in his mother's eyes as she explained.

"I, I remember," Harry said as he strained to sift through the vague memory he had of that dream. "You told me to believe in myself."

"We knew things weren't over, but we couldn't tell you more than we did," James said by way of an apology.

"But we know you have everything under control," Lily added encouragingly.

"Not exactly, I did help to resurrect this madman," Harry snarled as he flicked a glare to Voldemort who had apparently been struck dumb by the turn of events.

"But you will persevere and win," James said with confidence.

"And we can help you with more than that," Lily smiled and seemed to really be happy to share something. "In death we have been able to watch you, and also talk about events with others. With so many great minds around we were able to solve some problems."

"Feel like sharing?" he teased lightly, and James laughed along with his son.

"Bruce," James started. "You share a connection to him. Loki didn't say, because he doesn't even know himself as he broke all connections, but you can teleport to a person by following that connection. Think and feel, and you will be able to find Bruce."

"So almost an entire year searching at it is that easy?" Harry groaned.

"No one knew so it wasn't as if the answer was staring you in the face, it took many minds many weeks to debate whether it would work," Lily comforted him.

"And the general consensus is that it will?"

Lily nodded emphatically.

"And how do I get away from here?" Harry glanced around at the Death Eaters, circling like vultures, and the newly resurrected Dark Lord.

"Help is coming," James said.

Before anyone could react any further, a loud rumbling broke through the night air. The cloaked figures around them ducked sharply, whilst the ghosts merely turned to the sound. Harry, who had become familiar with the sound over the years, smiled broadly.

"We love you," Lily said as she held James' hand. "Don't be afraid, and remember people can make mistakes. Albus is a good man, he didn't have any part in this."

"The tournament wasn't designed to end like this," James pointed out. "Not everyone was raised to see the dark side of every act. Focus on Voldemort, and not the other problems for now."

"Squirt!" Tony's bellowed voice echoed through the graveyard.

"About time Tony!" Harry shouted back, his voice much quieter without the magnification of the Iron Man suit's speakers. "Voldemort, meet a Muggle superhero. Iron Man, meet the eternal pain in the ass!"

"Aww shit, he's back?" Tony whined.

"Yep, now let's get out of here!" Harry replied.

"Break the connection, we will help you get away," Lily said.

"Bye Mum, bye Dad," Harry spared them one final long glance.

Then without hesitating he wrenched his wand away and the barrier disintegrated. Tony immediately lay down cover fire, forcing most of the Death Eaters to leap back in fear for cover. The five ghosts rushed at Voldemort and the couple of followers that made it through the bullets. Harry sprinted away from the melee and into an open space, knowing the limitations of the Iron Man suit and how to make Tony's approach easier.

As soon as he reached the next open spot Tony slammed down next to him, barely having to move in order for Harry to climb onto his back. With both his arms wrapped around the metal covered throat of his Godfather Harry shouted for Tony to go.

But before they blasted away Harry couldn't resist a final parting shot. Making sure that the Dark Lord was within earshot he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"By the way Voldemort," Harry shouted before they disappeared. "My name's Harry Banner."


	66. Chapter 66 - Grey Areas

**A/N: Sorry for the huge gap in posting guys, I've been stuck getting the last of my college work done. But it is submitted, and hopefully that's an NVQ level 3 in Animal Care and Welfare qualification to my name too! Yes, I did just do that backwards (degree then NVQ) but hey I've never been conventional.**

 **You'll be pleased to know that I have the next load of chapters sorted, and I shall be updating daily until it is sorted... we are almost there!**

* * *

 **Chapter Sixty Six – Grey Areas**

Harry didn't know where the graveyard was in the UK, but from his estimation of how long it had taken for Tony to arrive he had a very rough idea. With the prospect of having to grip onto the cold Iron Man suit for the entire journey from somewhere just outside London all the way to Scotland Harry decided to intervene. With the suit able to filter out his voice over the rushing wind Tony heard his request loud and clear, and they quickly landed in an empty field.

"Why do you want to land?" Tony asked as he slid his faceplate up.

"I am not clinging to your back for an hour, we are going back my way," Harry stated firmly.

"Your way being?"

"Give me your hand," Harry held his out, and after a brief pause of confusion Tony grabbed it.

Within a few seconds the pair of them were stood in the black shadows of towering trees. Tony looked around silently, gaping at the instant change in surroundings. "Where are we?"

"A clearing in the Forbidden Forest, I didn't think appearing in the middle of a crowd would go down well with anyone," Harry explained as he strode off in a seemingly random direction.

"Yeah, that would be hard to explain how Iron Man managed that," Tony agreed.

"More the fact that even wizards cannot apparate into the school grounds, so neither of us could have managed to do that. We can just spin some bull about the flight capabilities of your suit, and the team will back us up," Harry decided.

"Hey, this suit can break the sound barrier," Tony protested.

"But that would have killed me without protection, so at a speed I could have stood it would have taken us over half an hour to get back," Harry countered.

Without any way to argue that point Tony fell silent and instead picked up his Godson.

"Hey, Tony!" Harry protested.

"Flying is quicker than walking," Tony said smugly as he slung the youth onto his back and blasted off.

It was Harry's turn to not be able to counter that and he fell silent as Tony shot up above the trees. With a clear line of sight to the brilliantly lit maze the billionaire sped forwards. In seconds they were landing at the edge of the crowds that were roiling in confusion, fear, and anger.

A few screams and shouts acted as heralds to their arrival, but the pair ignored them as Harry leapt forwards to a familiar crowd of people.

"Where's Cedric?" Harry asked before anyone else had a chance to speak to him.

"Cedric can wait, what happened?" someone called.

Harry ignored them and looked to Albus. It seemed that he was content to wait as the man immediately answered him. Harry waved off his assembled family, and out of the corner of his eye Harry saw Tony making a beeline for them.

Flitwick and Sprout stood outside of the changing rooms, looking like guards. A few people failed at their attempts to surreptitiously linger and try to see Cedric. Harry didn't even pause as he strode between the two, and was glad that the teachers didn't try to stop him. Just behind them Harry almost ran into a figure hidden in the shadows, and only just managed to stop them from toppling over. After a few mumbled apologies he realised the man was Amos Diggory, and silently gestured his request to enter. The man nodded, and Harry hurried on.

Inside the room was almost dark, a few conjured lights served as the only sources of light. Faintly Harry heard sobbing, muffled as if smothered by fabric. Unsure if it was Cedric attempting to stop himself Harry gingerly moved forwards, until he rounded the corner and entered the changing room proper.

Ahead of him he could see two figures entwined in a tight embrace. Although the one that would have been facing him was Cedric, the face of the other was hidden. However from the long jet black hair Harry was able to tell it was Cho.

"Cedric," Harry said quietly in order to announce his presence.

The pair started violently, and Cho looked around in surprise. Cedric sat upright and stared at Harry as if daring to believe he was seeing true. And without warning he surged to his feet and rushed to Harry, crushing him in a tight hug.

"Thank Merlin," he choked out, tears streaming from his eyes. "Harry, Fleur. She-."

"I know," Harry managed to choke out, fighting back the tidal wave of emotions threatening to drown him too. "I saw."

"Saw what? I had her body," Cedric moaned. "We landed, she was on top of me. She didn't move, I thought she was hurt!"

"Pettigrew's curse hit her as you left," Harry explained. "He managed to get me but I escaped and Tony rescued me."

"Why? Why did they do that?" Cedric asked.

"It wasn't part of the plan, Voldemort set it up," Harry explained, trying to be as gentle as he could. "He's back, and that was the plan. He needed me."

"But how did he know he would get you?" Cedric asked, trying to pull himself back together.

"That's what I'm going to find out," Harry vowed. "Stay here, I'll be back."

He gently disentangled himself from the tight embrace and gingerly wrapped the delicate form of his friend around his girlfriend again. Harry sent Cho a grateful smile, which she returned before she returned to gently whispering in Cedric's ear. He stormed off once more, through the dark changing rooms and the black tunnel towards the pitch.

Harry's sudden appearance out of the changing rooms seemed to startle the two Head of Houses and Cedric's parents, not that he registered it or that there were now four not three adults. He was on a mission, and nothing would stop Harry from finding his answer. No teacher or student would be able to stop him, and his frightening look caused many of both groups to move swiftly out of his way.

But as he tried to find them again Harry was angered to see that the gaggle of Head Teachers and Ministry officials had moved elsewhere. He had barely been gone five minutes, and it irked him that they wouldn't wait for him.

"They've gone to the castle," a familiar gruff voice spoke from beside him. "Your family went too. I'll take you to them."

"Just tell me where they are Professor, you needn't bother," Harry said in as civil a tone as he could muster.

"Not here, Albus wanted their location to remain private so no concerned parents could barge in," Moody explained as he started limping off towards the castle.

Without any choice Harry followed, easily matching the teacher's pace. The slow gait annoyed him further, but he swallowed his less than pleasant comments and suffered in silence.

The pair wound their way through the corridors, until they reached a seemingly random one. Moody opened the door and trudged through, leaving Harry to follow.

It was only as the door slammed shut behind him, and the room was plunged into darkness, that Harry realised it was a trap.

The red beam of light that shot towards him almost caught Harry by surprise. However he was still riding high on adrenaline, so as soon as the flash of light started he was already twisting away into the darkness.

"Bad move, traitor," he snarled as he ducked low and moved again, leaving the vicinity of where his voice had emanated from.

Predictably another red flash shot towards that spot, and Harry immediately acted. He flicked his hand in a low sweeping gesture, and as it moved ropes shot out and spun around the room. Under the cover of the unending darkness neither could see the effects of his spell, apart from Harry's imagination painting the outcome.

The rope twirled around the room until it caught on Moody's legs and then it wrapped fast around them, like a boa constrictor around its prey. With a pained cry and a thud the man fell.

He wasn't fully incapacitated though, and Harry knew that. Quickly he dashed towards the cry and cast a stunner of his own. Unlike his teacher, his spell sailed true and a further thud sounded as head met unyielding stone.

"I hope that bloody hurt," Harry snarled to the darkness.

A flick of his hand resulted in the room being bathed in light, revealing the man who Harry had trusted. Seeing as no one else had suspected him Harry had to believe that this was the first time he had acted out of character. He almost wanted to congratulate the man on keeping up a charade for an entire year.

Instead he grabbed the bound wooden leg of the man and started dragging him, not caring one jot that his head thudded into a doorway or a step every now and then. Assuming that his first instinct was correct Harry trudged the last few floors to the Headmaster's office. The Griffin that stood guard remained still as Harry glared at it.

"I know there is some magic that connects you to that office," he spoke to the statue. "Dumbledore has to have an early warning system. So if you desire to remain in once piece let him know he has another visitor."

After a few seconds the statue started to rotate and the stairs ascended. Grinning in victory Harry stepped onto one and let the motion of the statue carry him up.

Without bothering to knock Harry slammed the door open and dragged his burden into the office.

"I believe I just saved you a few hours of thinking," he announced to the room before dropping the limb of the man unceremoniously at the bottom of the steps leading up to the desk.

"Harry! Why have you got a bound man?" Clint asked.

"Well that git is supposed to be a teacher, but seeing as he just attacked me I don't think he actually is the renowned Auror he is supposed to be. It would make sense, he would have been trusted to do lots of secret stuff, would have the knowledge to befuddle the Cup, and had access to my blood," Harry surmised.

"How did he get your blood?" Remus asked, mortified.

"That one let him use the Imperius Curse on us as 'training'," Harry explained as he jabbed a finger at Dumbledore. "I resisted and cracked my head on his desk."

Multiple pairs of eyes looked between the student, the unconscious teacher, and the headmaster in shock.

"Hey, it kind of works," Harry broke in. "It kills me to admit it but how else can you understand the unforgivables without experiencing them? At least it was the milder one. Anyway, perhaps we could awaken this asshole and find out the truth?"

"Language please, Mr Banner," Albus said mildly.

However he did conjure a hard wooden chair with a flick of his wand, and two more flicks had the man bound to said chair. Snape stepped forward at a nod of the man and poured some clear liquid down the bound man's throat. Once that was done the potions master flicked his wand, and their captive awoke with a start.

"Are you Alastor Moody?" Albus started with no preamble.

"No," the man said.

"How?" Natasha could be heard murmuring.

"Veritaserum is a powerful truth serum, only used in extenuating circumstances. And Polyjuice potion allows anyone to take another human's form," Remus explained.

"And considering it has been a hectic night, I reckon he has probably forgotten to take his regular dose," Sirius chipped in.

Indeed, almost as soon as Sirius stopped talking the man started to shudder and groan, his skin bubbling like melting wax. In no time at all the magical eye and peg leg fell off, the former rolling away. By the end the hefty man had shrunk to a much skinnier, taller form.

"Barty Crouch Junior?" Snape said in surprise.

"The most loyal of all," Harry said dully.

"What did you say?" Snape peeled his eyes from their captive to the student, who had been coerced into sitting down by his family.

"Voldemort's words," Harry explained.

At the disbelieving look from most people in the room he sighed. "Shall I start from the beginning?"

Half an hour later Harry sat back, the basic story told despite multiple interruptions. He had avoided telling the group about the very personal conversation between him and his parents, instead just stating they appeared and helped to distract Voldemort.

Around the room were various looks, Harry's American family were looking murderous, whilst his Magical relatives looked both horrified and angry. Professor Dumbledore looked grey, and McGonagall had gone white and had sunk into a chair. Snape was glaring at Crouch, whilst Fudge was desperately shaking his head.

"Impossible, there is no way that man has returned. This boy is just trying to distract me from the fact he lost his bet," Fudge stated.

"What bet?" Clint asked, a hint of worry in his voice.

"He bet that he would win the tournament, if not he would allow me to rehome him with a proper wizarding family," Fudge said smugly.

"Hey, I tied with Cedric and Fleur to get to the cup. That was the end of the tournament, so technically I didn't lose," Harry argued.

"And even if you do decide to declare him the loser, then I will adopt him," Sirius broke in. "Black is one of the oldest and most noble wizarding families. He's my godson so there is no excuse for the Ministry to interfere with the adoption."

Harry, who had been massaging his eyes with a thumb and forefinger, froze for a second before cracking his eyes open and beaming. "Well, with that settled then. Declare who you want as the winner, it can be Krum for all I care. But my statement still stands, Voldemort is back."

"You're all lying, and I refuse to let you spread panic through this conspiracy," Fudge continued to argue.

Surprisingly the person to counter Fudge's disbelief was the one that Harry wouldn't have guessed. Snape strode forward, tugging the buttons of his sleeve undone and bared his left arm right under the Minister's nose.

"Look, The Dark Mark," Snape said in disgust. "It's not as clear as it was an hour ago when it first burnt black. After the Dark Lord fell over a decade ago it faded to almost nothing, and now it is back as he summons us. Why do you think Karkaroff has fled? He felt it burn earlier and fears the retribution heading his way for selling them all out."

The short man took a few steps back from the grisly tattoo, shaking his head still. Harry sighed, knowing that the man would likely argue until he was blue in the face.

"It's your choice what you do Minister, but I have said my piece and you have your drugged evidence there," he said as he stood. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a few things to do."

"Like what?" the Minister sneered still obviously believing Harry was trying to get out of hot water.

"Comfort a friend who is traumatised by watching another friend die, go rescue my father, and a couple of private things," Harry said, both vaguely and accurately.

"You know where Bruce is?" Tony asked excitedly.

"Not exactly, but I have a lead," Harry shrugged. "And I'm determined to follow it to see if it is real."

"We're coming with you," Clint chipped in.

"No, I don't know if he is in danger or merely somewhere remote and isolated. If it is the latter he is going to be pretty annoyed if we all charge in there," Harry countered.

"But if it is the first option then you'll need help," the archer argued back.

"I'm ready to go," Tony gestured to the metal suitcase by his feet.

"Our kit is in the Quinjet, we can grab it on the way past," Clint said as the three adults started planning.

"You can't go out wearing that, you'll be recognised immediately," Tony said.

"Erm, pot calling kettle black?"

"You know what he means," Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Fine, we need to drop by the Ravenclaw Tower first then," Harry sighed.

"We're all going then?" Tony asked in clarification.

"Yes, whatever it takes if it means we can leave _now_ ," the teen acquiesced gruffly.

"Can we help?" Sirius' voice stopped the four in their tracks.

"They don't know our methods," Clint said as they glanced at each other.

"But neither would anyone who we face know theirs," Natasha countered.

"More firepower can't hurt," Tony finished off.

The three looked at Harry, knowing that the final say was his as it was his family that might be in danger. Harry thought for a few seconds before deciding. "We don't know what situation we'll be going into, if we are going to a Muggle location we cannot risk breaking the Statute of Secrecy. And not being able to let you defend yourself could end up with you being killed. Stay here and help Dumbledore, I'm sure he has plans to set into motion."

"Harry," the teen almost groaned as they were stopped again.

"Yes Headmaster?" he said as politely as he could manage, although no one missed the clipped wording that showed his frustration.

"Please be careful, when you are successful can you come back and let me know how it goes? I feel there will be many things we will need to discuss. The password to my office is Cockroach Cluster," Albus said simply.

"Yes sir," Harry replied and finally strode from the room.

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Harry flew up the stairs to the stairs to his dormitory and flung his tournament clothes onto his bed. Quickly he slid into a pair of black jeans, a black shirt, and his dress robe. As it was primarily black with a tiny amount of green on it the robe was as anonymous as he could get whilst being able to hide items about his person. He also altered to robes to include a hood, and charmed it so that his face was constantly cast in shadow, and a little trick to add effect. Finally he grabbed the first aid kit and knife and strapped them to his belt.

"Is that going to be enough?" Clint asked as he saw Harry's attempt at changing.

"There's a few more additions to the hood," Harry said as a poor explanation. "Can you describe where the quinjet is?"

"Yeah, it's parked behind the Shrieking Shack," Clint said slowly.

"Perfect, everyone stick a hand out," Harry cut him off.

Tony immediately complied, the other two were slower to do so. As soon as they were all connected Harry gripped their hands with his magic and whisked them away.

The four of them landed gracefully a few metres from the decrepit building, and ten metres from the squat plane.

"What the hell was that?" Clint asked.

"A little trick Loki taught me," Harry stated. "If the tournament has taught me anything it's that playing down my strengths is fine until it risks people. Dad is in danger, so screw pretending to be a normal student."

"That's handy," Tony said mildly, biting back his protests of using Loki's skills.

"We'll be back," Natasha said as the pair of assassins legged it back to the quinjet.

Clint slapped the opening mechanism, and they disappeared inside. In less than a minute they were back, Clint with his bow across his back and Natasha with her widow bite gauntlets on.

"We might be going in hot," Harry warned.

He flicked the hood of his robe up, and the world darkened for him. However from the appreciative whistle from Clint he knew his dramatic flair was a good idea. Although he didn't have time to check himself, he knew that all the other three would be able to see was a black void, with two glaring green dragon-like eyes. They would look where he looked, and would blink at the same time, making it more realistic and hopefully unnerving. His grin went unseen, so Harry made an overly dramatic bow and he heard Tony hide a snort.

"You're going to need a nickname," Tony declared.

"Well you can have a think as we go, suit up Tony," Harry reminded him.

Once the billionaire was encased in his metal suit, Harry held his hand out once more and the four rejoined hands.

"Give me a second," Harry asked.

He closed his eyes, causing the glowing green orbs to cut off from his hood too, and he tried to discover what he had been told. Just like with Occlumency and searching his thoughts, Harry searched his mind for memories of his father. When he found them, he tried to follow the feeling he got whenever he saw Bruce's face in his mind's eye. There was a faint warm feeling, and Harry tugged on it slightly. It held, as if anchored to something.

"Got it, let's give this a go," Harry muttered for the benefit of his adoptive family.

"What, you're not sure thi-." Tony yelped, before they disappeared.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

"-is is safe?" Tony carried on talking as they materialised in the middle of a desert.

He hadn't even finished speaking when sirens starting blaring, announcing the fact they had already been spotted. Harry couldn't see the cameras that had detected them, but he wasn't naïve enough to ignore their existence. He was a bit more focussed on fighting of the sudden dizzy spell that hit him, and the worrying faint feeling. He listened as the others spoke, but tried to work on pulling himself together.

"Cameras everywhere, whoever is here doesn't want people getting in," Tony echoed Harry's thoughts.

"Where is Bruce?" Clint asked as they looked around.

"Probably underground, seeing as this was the first time I've tried this I didn't want to go underground and risk us getting stuck in a wall," Harry explained as he brought himself back to the present. "I can give it a go if you want, but I know we are above him now."

"I think we can walk the rest of the way," Tony said as he turned. Trucks were appearing in the distance, screaming towards them.

"How are we planning this?" Clint asked as he slipped his bow from his shoulder and easily nocked an arrow to the string.

"I'm not in the mood for bullshit," Harry said simply.

"I like the new Harry," Clint said with a grin.

"We need one alive, if only for a short while," Harry stopped Clint from firing an explosive arrow straight into the lead jeep.

Instead the four of them stood waiting until they were completely encircled by vehicles. Streams of soldiers leapt from the vehicles and dashed through the churned up dust to cover them with their guns. Harry stood calmly facing one point of the compass whilst the adults covered the other three.

"Identify yourselves," one solider shouted.

"The Avengers plus one," Tony quipped. "I believe you were probably expecting us, we heard you have our friend here. You know, normally a short mild mannered man, terrible anger issues?"

"Eight to one odds," Clint murmured, just loud enough for the other three to hear.

"Take that down to three to one odds," Tony replied. "Duck when I say."

"You will lay down your weapons and come with us," the same soldier ordered.

"You heard him guys, drop it," Tony said casually.

The other three immediately dropped to the ground, and the popping of rockets alerted them to one of the seemingly minor defensive aspects of the Iron Man suit firing. Shortly after multiple thumps prove that the targeting system of the suit was lethally effective.

Without waiting for further instructions Clint and Natasha leapt up, firing bullets and arrows left and right. Harry, despite his blood being up and adrenaline singing in his veins, couldn't bring himself to kill. So he stayed low and used his skills to help deflect bullets that got too close to his unarmoured aunt and uncle.

In pitifully few minutes the battle was over and the desert was filled with the sounds of the dying. Tony casually strolled across to a man lying with an arrow through his lung and carelessly kicked him over. The man groaned as he rolled onto his back, coughing out a dribble of blood at the same time.

"Listen to that one, and answer what he needs to know. Do that and I'll stop your suffering," Tony said.

The glob of bloody spit that landed on his red shoe was almost invisible from the similar colours.

"Not a good idea," Harry advised the injured man mildly.

"Go to hell," he spat back.

"Yes, I probably will. But until then," Harry bent down and dragged the man closer, intentionally using the arrow as leverage.

The man screamed out at the pain of the projectile being moved inside him.

"Now, I need to know how to get into the base below our feet, please," Harry asked politely. "Don't make me ask twice, I can have a terrible temper when I'm angry."

The guard seemed to genuinely consider not answering Harry. To hurry the decision along he continued to twist the arrow, fighting down the urge to let go and vomit because he was intentionally causing pain. Everything in him was screaming at him to stop and to help the man he was hurting, but he shoved that instinct aside and kept on twisting. The angry little child within him that missed his father was taking over, and he was ready to rip the world apart for the security his father would give him.

"Alright!" the man managed to choke out between screams. "The way we came from, there's a hidden underground garage where we park the trucks. Look for the rocky outcrop, a keypad is hidden under the scrub. The code's 18042008."

"Thank you for your help, you've been so kind," Harry said sweetly.

He stood and nodded to Natasha, who ended his pain with a quick bullet to the head.

"Clint, fancy driving us to that location?" Harry asked. "Tony can fly ahead and scope it out."

"I'll drive, I can shoot with one hand whereas he needs both of his," Natasha slipped into the nearest vehicle.

The ride was quick and rough, Natasha didn't spare any speed as she slammed up through the gears. No one complained about the rough ride though, knowing that every second counted.

Time ran out as they reached the rocky outcrop mentioned, as a ramp slammed down into the ground and a whole host of men poured up it. Natasha pulled the jeep to a halt and the two assassins immediately jumped out to join the fray. Harry, who had made to with gripping tightly to the metal bench seats in the back, hesitated.

It was an inevitable fact of war that blood would be spilt, and as he dithered he could hear the other three doing that without restraint. And despite seeing plenty of it in his childhood travels, Harry had never done harm to another human being before. He had never killed anything more than an insect.

"Dad needs us. They could have refused to work here, it's their fault," Harry muttered to himself to psych himself up.

Before he could chicken out of it he leapt out the back of the vehicle and slammed his boots to the dirt. Two cream coloured figures stood in front of him, aiming at the assassins who had their backs turned. Without thinking, Harry pointed his hand and sent two blinding bolts of energy towards them. Whether it was coincidence or not Harry couldn't tell, but these bursts of energy were a very similar colour to the traditional killing curse he had seen plenty of times recently.

Clint heard a commotion behind them and spun, ready to face an oncoming attack. What he actually found was two bodies, their heads rolling almost lazily away from them. Following the straight line between rolling heads and up he caught sight of the black clad figure with glowing green eyes. He nodded approvingly at the youth before turning back to the fight.

Swallowing back the urge to vomit Harry sprinted forward and flicked his hands out multiple times. Each time he finished pointing, a bolt of energy sped from his fingertips and severed another neck. Soon just as many bodies lay on the floor without heads as those who fell impaled with arrows, or with holes in their heads.

With four of them fighting the ramp was soon clear of living enemies, and the chamber below was soon cluttered with cars and bodies. Only when no new figures faced them did they stop moving.

"Next direction?" Tony gazed around.

"We should have kept one of them alive again," Clint sighed.

"Just keep heading down at the moment," Harry brushed past them all walked towards one door.

"Is your sixth sense working?" Tony joked.

"No, but health and safety rules state you have to leave all emergency exit routes clear," Harry gestured to the rest of the room. "The rest of this place is a mash of weapons, cars, and equipment. This path is clear."

"That kid is way too clever for his own good," Clint chuckled as they followed.

Through the door they found a stairwell that seemed to spiral down for miles. Knowing that was impossible, Harry still knew that there was likely at least ten levels between them and the very bottom floor.

"Three guesses which level Bruce is on?" Tony said as they started trudging down.

Or at least Clint, Natasha, and Harry did. Tony stayed put and just watched them.

"You not coming?" Harry asked.

"I am, just I'm not walking down all those stairs. I can survive jumping ten floors you know," he said smugly.

"Lazy," Harry muttered.

"Economic," Tony quipped back.

When they finally reached the bottom floor Harry checked the faint thrumming bond he had with his father. He nodded to Clint and Natasha when he felt that they were finally getting closer.

After Tony finally joined them the four burst through the door and immediately faced a hail of bullets. With the Iron Man suit deflecting most of them the other three gingerly emerged to snipe off some of the opposition.

Their progress was slow as they faced numerous soldiers trying to kill them. Harry tried to avoid keeping track of the number of men he was killing, and instead sank himself as deeply as he could into the bond and revelled as it got stronger.

It felt like an age before they finally stopped encountering enemies. They had reached a set of double doors, made of metal and apparently locked tight. But no lock had been built that could stand against a blast from the Iron Man suit.

The interior of the room was crammed with a plethora of medical equipment, papers, wires, and computers. In the middle was a plain metal table with a figure strapped to it. Nearby four figures in white coats hovered, while one in military garb stood right next to the table. The man had stabbed a syringe into the arm of his captive, and from the looks of it the contents hadn't been a sedative. Bruce seemed to be in a large amount of pain, despite barely being conscious.

Harry didn't really remember what happened after that. A red mist seemed to descend over his sight, blinding him to what he did.

He only became aware of the room again when he felt metal hands grab him and lift him from the floor. Tony also blasted off, putting them right at the ceiling of the room and far from whatever Harry had been doing.

"Easy there, we need one of them alive," Tony said in his ear.

Harry, who had been fighting his godfather's grip, stopped struggling and looked around. The four doctors or lab assistants were laying in pools of their own blood, and the smears suggested that it hadn't been a quick death for any of them. There were no signs of arrows or bullets, so Harry himself had caused some mortal injury that lead to their slow deaths.

The military man was lying on the floor screaming, his legs missing below his knees whilst his nose dripped blood. Clint and Natasha were keeping an eye on him, but neither moved to help him or even spared him a compassionate look.

"Why do we need this piece of filth alive?" Harry snarled, still angry and uncaring of the four grisly deaths nearby.

"Because we need to find out what he gave Bruce," Tony reasoned.

"… Fine. Put me down, we will find out," he grunted.

As soon as he was back on the floor Harry walked over to the still screaming man and slapped him around the face. The man turned his watery gaze on the teen and glared up at him angrily.

"Oh get over it, you deserve it," Harry scoffed, perhaps not the most diplomatically. From Tony's sniggers and Natasha's sigh, he knew he wasn't doing the best job. "Now, tell me what you just injected him with and I will help ease the pain."

"Make me," the grey haired man spat.

"Bad choice of words," Tony quipped.

Harry merely smiled and summoned a small burst of energy. The man before him started screaming anew when his little finger on his left hand was suddenly severed from his hand.

"Oh trust me, I can make you," Harry grinned, although it wouldn't be seen. "You still have nine more digits, and two limbs… and one _very_ important asset I can play with."

"Hydrochloric acid," the man howled.

"Many thanks," Harry said with little sincerity. "Tony, can we counter that?"

"I don't know, Bruce was the medical man. His natural resistance to pretty much everything means it won't kill him, although it won't be pleasant until his biology neutralises the acid. If we can get him to safety then we can at least knock him out until the worst is over," Tony suggested.

"Get him ready," Harry agreed.

"As I said before, thanks for your help Ross," Harry turned back to the man. "I've always been told to show my appreciation."

"Harry…" Natasha said warningly. "We do not sink to their level, no matter how tempting it is."

"Oh fine," Harry sighed. "Although he deserves it."

"You'll hear no argument from me, but he's suffered enough," Tony reluctantly joined in.

Tony's words had Harry turning back to the disarmed man and bent low over him. Securely he gripped the man's neck with his right hand and leant close so that he could whisper in his ear. "You really should have figured this out by now, you play with fire and you'll get burnt. I'll get much satisfaction from knowing your body is rotting down here. And I will make sure my dad knows he is safe from you. Goodbye, ex-General Ross."

The teen didn't look back at the dismembered body as he stood smoothly and quickly closed his eyes to fight off the headrush. Although it helped speed up his recovery, he missed the concerned looks being traded between the three adults. Once the dizzy spell passed he held out his right hand and the other three mimicked him, and they were gone again. Tony had Bruce slung over his shoulder, and as soon as they arrived at Avenger Tower he strode off towards the lifts.

"JAR-," Harry started, then paused. "I keep forgetting about that. Has Tony replaced him?"

"In the suit yes, but the tower is run just on voice commands now," Natasha replied. "But those questions can wait."

"Huh?" Harry said.

"You're weaving on your feet," Natasha pointed out. "How much have you practiced that magic?"

"Erm… a bit? I can change into animals pretty easily now," Harry rubbed his eyes.

"And in a combat situation?" Clint asked. "Or have you done any of that spellwork before?"

"No to both?" he squirmed a little at the stares both assassin's were giving him.

"You, go get a set of clothes from your room," Natasha ordered. "Then come and find us."

"Where…?" Harry started but didn't get to finish.

"We'll be down in the medical rooms, we'll make sure there is somewhere for you to sleep near Bruce whilst you wait for him to wake up," Natasha continued as if Harry hadn't interrupted.

He smiled and quickly headed off on the faintly familiar route back to their rooms. Although he had only spent a day or so in the Tower last summer he knew the layout to get to his barely used bedroom. Dust covered almost every surface, telling how many people had visited the small complex he and his dad shared. The houseplants they had collected were long dead, and the air was stale and cold. He shivered at the depressing atmosphere he faced and hurried to get away from it. With his mind already starting to threaten him with memories of what he had just done he was keen to distract himself.

Harry quickly strode through to his room, grabbed a set of clothes that would roughly fit him, and left again as quickly as he could. It was a mixture of the slightly unappealing rooms, and his anxiety to see his dad.

The medical rooms were stark white, smelt of bleach, and quiet. In one room he could see the four figures he had been aiming for, and Harry hurried towards them.

"Bathroom is through there," Clint pointed.

Harry nodded and quickly changed, re-emerging with an armful of robes. He dumped them on a spare chair and climbed up onto the empty bed next to Bruce's pale and motionless form.

"He might not wake up for a while; the machines are reading that he is exhausted, dehydrated, and malnourished. So take a nap, he'll definitely be here when you wake up," Tony said comfortingly.

The teen nodded gratefully, and despite his wish to try and stay up a little longer he was soon falling into a deep unbroken sleep.


	67. Chapter 67 - Building Up

**A/N: As promised, I am going to get this out as quick as I can to make up for my huge gaps in posting! Thanks as always to everyone who has waited and has enjoyed it enough to favourite/follow/review.**

* * *

 **Chapter Sixty Seven – Building Up**

If it wasn't for all three adults ganging up on him Harry may well have stayed staring at his father for days, waiting for him to wake up. After falling asleep he didn't regain consciousness for twelve hours, and even then he was barely cognizant. He could see that Bruce was in the same position he had been arranged in, and that the other three were asleep. So he joined them and closed his eyes again.

The next time he woke up was from Tony poking him awake with a tray of food. Harry saw that there was a variety of dishes like soup, some noodle dish, pizza, chips and a steak, and fruit. Despite not really feeling hungry Harry started munching on a few pieces and amazed himself when he cleared the lot. Afterwards he drained a pitcher of juice and responded to Tony's probing questions. It was obvious from Tony's unsubtle hovering that he was worried about the teen, and Harry tried to act as if nothing was amiss. Although he didn't think he had completely been successful the billionaire did seem to relax slightly.

"You should be heading back," Natasha pointed out when the two assassins came to visit a couple of hours later.

Harry immediately bristled at that suggestion and turned to argue with her.

"Look, I'll call you if anything changes," Tony said eventually and tossed a Stark Phone at him.

"It sounds like you guys want to get rid of me," Harry said as he looked over at Clint. The glint in his eye let them know that although he had said it as a joke, he definitely wasn't joking.

"Not me, I know you want to hang around for Bruce to wake up," Clint shrugged. "But I do get what they are getting at. Life doesn't stop just because you want it to."

"You know that when it comes to dealing with megalomaniacs it isn't a good idea to hang around," Tony replied seriously.

"You promised Dumbledore to update him, and sitting here brooding won't help anyone," Natasha backed up the other two.

"Alright, I'll be back as soon as I can," the teen sighed unhappily as he unfolded himself from his bed. "You'll keep him safe?"

"This is the safest place in America," Tony said indignantly.

"Yeah, but I've seen the news," Harry had indeed quickly flicked through the news and had seen the unrest between the masses and superhumans. The Avengers had screwed up in Africa, and people were out for their blood. "They know who he is, and anyone could come for revenge. Anonymity has it's uses."

"I promise we'll keep him safe," Clint said with conviction.

"We'll contact you as soon as anything changes," Tony waved at the phone.

"Or if things get too hot here, I'll take him somewhere else safe," Harry insisted.

And without waiting for a reply he blinked and was gone from the Tower. For a few minutes he paused and searched himself, and was pleasantly surprised that he didn't feel that drained from jumping that far across the globe. All of the spellwork he had done the day before had been experimental and could have failed at any point. However it seemed that his deal with Loki had benefitted him more than he had ever thought, and he doubted that he would have any problems using that magic in the future. He cracked into a bit of a dark smile as he imagined obliterating Voldemort in revenge later. But to do that he had to make progress, so he shook himself from his thoughts and started up to the castle.

Like every other time, Harry planned his arrival point to be just within the confines of the Forbidden Forest where he wouldn't be spotted. Except this time he had barely managed to get halfway across the grounds before he had company.

"How's your dad?" Kevin gasped out as they ran up to him.

"He's stable, Tony has him safe in the medical suite back at the Tower. I'm going back as soon as I can though," Harry filled them in. "How are things here?"

"Classes have halted, and everything's up in the air at the moment," Hermione explained.

"Cedric is a mess, understandably," Fred added.

"And Karkaroff's disappeared," George finished.

"And the Ministry lot?" Harry asked as they started walking back to the castle, not bothering to act shocked at the last bit of news that he already knew.

"After a tonne of arguing that carried on all the way from Dumbledore's office to the school gates they left," Hermione said with a disapproving look. "It wasn't very professional."

"So are Beauxbaton and Durmstrang still here?"

"They're leaving tonight after a ceremony for Fleur," Neville said quietly.

"Where's Cedric?" Harry asked, deciding to get on with his list of aims.

"Hufflepuff dormitories," Fred answered whilst George pulled out the map again, as Harry was in no doubt that that was how they had found him.

"Yep," George agreed.

"I'm going to see him, do you guys want to meet me at lunch?" Harry suggested, looking at his watch. He hadn't bothered to adjust it for America's time over the short time he was there.

"Sure," Kevin replied for them all, and they slowly drifted off towards the lake.

Harry sighed and trudged into the castle, ignoring anyone who stopped to stare at him. He hadn't had his school robes to wear, so after they had been laundered at the Tower he had slipped the black ensemble back on. Although the robes hid some of his muggle clothing, it was obvious he wasn't in his school uniform. Like always though Harry ignored the murmurs and ploughed forward, his robe billowing behind him and causing many young students to scuttle out of the way.

Once outside the Hufflepuff Common Room Harry had to exercise patience and waited for some help. Without the password he couldn't exactly ask the portrait to send a message, as the badgers used barrels, he had no way of getting in. Eventually a gaggle of first years appeared around the corner. However when they spotted Harry they froze.

"Hey guys, could you help me?" he said, trying to appear relaxed, friendly, and unthreatening.

"What do you want?" the boy in the front said nervously, after being nudged forward by the other two.

"I need to speak to Cedric, can you pass on a message that I'm here?" he asked calmly.

"Cedric hasn't left the common room in days, he won't come out for you probably," the black haired boy replied, peeking out from behind the first boy.

"Why don't you just come in with us?" the third piped up, then shrank back as the other two glared at him. "What? He's Cedric's friend, and it's not like he's in Slytherin."

"If he doesn't want to see me I'll leave immediately, and I won't tell anyone your password," Harry promised.

After a few glances to each other the three first year Hufflepuffs seemed to reach an agreement and carried on forwards. Harry stepped to the side of the corridor and followed behind them, and watched as they reached the barrels. A few nervous glances had him smiling fakely and turning around, letting them do whatever needed to be done to gain access the common room. Apparently the Hufflepuffs didn't use a password, but instead some kind of rhythmic knocking on the barrels.

The common room for the badgers was an incredibly cosy looking round room, with windows half buried in the ground so that a lot of the view was full of grass and flowers. The multitude of armchairs and sofas looked almost overstuffed and comfy enough to make anyone fall asleep immediately. Overhead tonnes of interesting plants hummed, chirped, danced, and generally filled the air with lovely scents.

"Go down that corridor, the seventh year dormitories are at the end," the smallest boy said again.

"Thanks guys," Harry said with a genuine smile.

Leaving the warm coppery coloured common room Harry headed down the wood panelled corridor to the very end. Gently he knocked on the door, and waited for any sort of reply. There was a very faint noise on the other side that sounded like a voice, and not one that was angry. Gingerly he pushed the door open and walked through.

"Cedric?" he said quietly.

"Harry?" he heard the older student reply.

One bed had its curtains closed, but one side of them twitched and opened a crack. In the darkness a shape moved, and Harry moved forwards and sat on the edge of the next bed along.

"How are you doing?" Harry asked.

"Not good," Cedric admitted in a croak.

The Hufflepuff slowly uncoiled from his foetal position and shuffled to the edge of the bed. He was wearing loose comfortable clothes in the typical black and yellow of his house. Cedric's hair was tasselled and matted from lack of care, he had large dark circles around his eyes, which were also bloodshot, and he was in need of a good shave.

"Every time I close my eyes I can see her," Cedric slurred out, tiredly rubbing his eyes. "If I sleep I keep replaying that night. Why wasn't I quicker? Why didn't we listen to you?"

"Hey," Harry said to interrupt the ramblings of the older teen. "You can't blame yourself, because I'd have to blame myself too."

"Why? You did nothing wrong," Cedric protested.

"Why didn't I act faster? Why didn't I insist we leave as soon as we arrived? Why didn't I force you two to leave?" it wasn't hard to find ways to blame himself for Fleur's death.

"But you did try to get us to leave, and you acted quicker than any of us," the Hufflepuff countered.

"I still wasn't fast enough. We are only teens, still learning how to control our magic. Pettigrew was an adult who fought in the last war, with at least twenty years on us. If anything it is amazing that two of us managed to make it out of there," Harry pointed out.

Although Cedric still looked miserable and half dazed, Harry got the feeling his words were starting to sink in. So he desperately tried to think of ways to carry on reaching Cedric. "If we both live with regrets and what-ifs we are going to be crushed by the guilt before we even get to the end of this war. Like I said before, Voldemort set that whole trap up to get me. If anyone should feel guilty it should be me."

"Don't you?"

"I do, but I feel angrier than I do guilty. I'm angry that the Ministry decided to start up this death tournament again, I'm angry I was entered, and that I wasn't quicker to the cup. I'm angry that Fleur died, and I'm angry that it looks like the Minister won't believe us that Voldemort is back. But unlike when Skeeter wrote that article about me and I started demolishing things, this time I'm going to do something productive."

"Like what?" it seemed that with something else to focus on a spark of life was being reignited in Cedric.

"I'm going to have a meeting with Dumbledore and find out what his plans are to counter Voldemort. Then, because he probably won't tell me everything, I'm going to head to London to meet some friends who I've already got doing research for me. Then I'm going to train all summer, so that when we are ready I can kill Voldemort," Harry stated.

"Is that what the rest of our group is going to do?" Cedric asked.

"I don't know, if they want to join me they can but I'm not forcing anyone into anything they don't want to do. I just know I'm not going to sit around and wait for the battle to come to me," Harry said fervently.

Cedric stood and emerged from his bed, for perhaps the first time in the last couple of days. Harry stood too and looked at him expectantly.

"I'll help you," Cedric promised again, just like the start of the year.

"Thanks," Harry smiled encouragingly.

"No, thank you for helping me," the seventh year said emphatically.

"Now, please don't take offence, but you might want to have a shower," Harry suggested. "We're all meeting for lunch if you want to come with?"

Harry left him gathering his things for a shower and walked straight out of the Hufflepuff Common Room. He spared the trio lurking by the fire a quick smile of gratitude as he passed them, then hurried on for his next engagement.

At the very top of the school he once again came to stop in front of the grand Griffin statue that guarded the office. Although this time he didn't have to threaten the statue and merely intoned "cockroach cluster."

"Ah Harry, I'm glad to see you have returned," Dumbledore said as the teen closed the door after knocking.

"I said I would," Harry said shortly as he crossed the room. "I was hoping we could have a frank discussion about what happens now."

"There are still a few details I would like clarified from your meeting with Voldemort a couple of nights ago," Dumbledore gestured for Harry to take a seat.

"An answer for an answer then?" Harry suggested. "And I'm feeling generous, you can go first."

"When your wand joined with Voldemort's, more happened than what you told us," Dumbledore said. Although the pernickety part of Harry wanted to point out that no question was asked, he swallowed the comment and answered.

"My parents emerged, and we had a conversation. I had managed to see them once before when I almost died as a child, so we had a catch up. They told me to trust you, that you aren't the worst thing I have to deal with now. And also they had a way for me to find Bruce," Harry elaborated. "Now, you have your own band of merry men that helped fight in the last war. I assume you will get them back together and up to speed?"

"Yes, some members are already mobilising. Sirius and Remus were part of the Order, along with Pettigrew and your parents. They are off notifying the old members, and potentially recruiting new ones. Severus has gone to fulfil his role once more. We are also sorting out new headquarters," Albus was surprisingly open. "How did you find your father?"

"I studied some mostly unknown magic on my year out, it taught me that I have a connection with him and that I could apparate and follow that connection," Harry replied, fudging the truth slightly. "What plans do you have to combat Voldemort?"

"I'll send out people to recruit some of the magical creatures and communities in the country, such as the werewolves, whilst recruiting witches and wizards. We will not provoke Voldemort into attacking, but we will be ready when he does," the headmaster replied. "And the same question to you."

"To defeat your enemy you have to know them," Harry stated. "I'm going to research everything I can about Voldemort, then train to beat him. If he appears then I'll be ready to face him. What is your stance on the Death Eaters, if they attack the school, what would you do with them?"

"The Wizarding Community in the UK is small, we cannot afford to mindlessly shed blood," Albus said severely. "Why?"

"Not even those that torture innocents? Bellatrix Lestrange for example? Barty Crouch Junior? They mercilessly tortured the Longbottoms to insanity, and you would still let them live?" Harry asked, trying to keep his tone even.

"They, given time and patience, could learn to see their mistakes. If we resort to killing then we are no better than Voldemort," Albus lectured. "Would you kill everyone who stood against you?"

"Only if there was no other way," Harry said quietly.

"Bloodshed should never be a solution," the elder man lectured.

"It shouldn't but then when it saves innocents then it will be," Harry stated. "And that is a topic you'll never get me to change on, Headmaster. I'd rather kill to see my friends safe than risk their lives. And if you feel that is harsh then you should have put better security measures on the Tournament and ensured Fleur would have lived."

"I agree, we were blinded to some threat from our own supposed people," Albus sighed. "I would like it if I could know the full extent of your powers that you learnt in your year out?"

"I'm afraid that's my secret," Harry said firmly. "But suffice to say it'll be a shock to everyone."

"How are we to trust you if we do not know what you can do?" Albus tried to wheedle.

"I managed to hold my own against three seventh years, I think you can trust I can handle whatever you throw at me," Harry pointed out. "Any information you feel like sharing with me now regarding Voldemort that might be useful? Seeing as I'm making it my aim to study him you'll save me some time."

"There is much I would like to tell you, but there is not enough time today. Next year would you agree to having meetings with me to cover what I need to tell you?" Albus asked.

"Sure, that'll be much appreciated," Harry sighed, knowing he wouldn't win that fight. "Was the Minister still denying all the evidence when he left?"

"Unfortunately. Cornelius was a good Minister in peace time, but he hasn't got a head for warfare. He has a tendency to panic and will do anything to avoid having to disturb the peace," Albus said soberly. "I would appreciate it if you avoid attracting any attention from the Ministry or the _Prophet_ for the time being. They will likely aim to lead a smear campaign against you to discredit anything you say."

"No worries, my Godfather is used to the American press and will help me follow that," he nodded. "Although if I find Skeeter after she writes another blatantly falsified article I won't be responsible for my actions."

"And I'm afraid we are out of time, lunch is about to start and I need to talk to a few professors about the ceremony this evening," Dumbledore said as he looked at his pocket watch. He then gave Harry a stern glare for his last comment but let it slide.

That evening was a sombre one, with little joy or celebrating going on. Instead of there being a large banquet in the Great Hall, food had been provided in the Common Rooms and they were only heading to the hall afterwards for the ceremony. The banners, normally decked out in the colours of the winning house, hung instead in the simple black of mourning. The tables were missing and instead seats were laid out in rows with a central aisle. Despite the change in layout, each house sat together wearing their most smart robes. In amongst the black sea two stripes of colour broke up the monochromatic swathe. Harry was sitting with the rest of his house, a few rows behind the pale blue row of Beauxbaton students, and it broke his heart to see a tiny pale figure clinging to another student.

He was grateful that Dumbledore got straight to the point with the memorial service, Maxime spoke some words about Fleur's character and then the man himself spoke. Harry wasn't surprised to hear the mixed sounds of fear and disbelief as their headmaster informed them of Voldemort's return, but he didn't much care. For him the moment was to honour Fleur and pay his respects, and in a way to pause as he planned the next few weeks.

With the memorial ceremony over the students started filing out slowly from the back of the room. In their position in the closer half the Ravenclaws had to wait patiently to leave, although they did so without complaint. Even when they reached the common room once more few lingered in the comfy living area, instead most headed to bed. A few people shot him weird glances, probably because of his part in Fleur's death and Voldemort's supposed resurrection, but Harry ignored them and went to bed straight away.

The next morning he awoke before everyone else in his dormitory and started to quietly sort through his trunk. He didn't know what was to come, but he was going to be ready for it. The various small bits of equipment that the Avengers had given over the years he hid on his person, but he left the majority of his belongings. The bow he had been given, books, clothes, and school equipment remained in his trunk which he locked and left at the end of his bed. He quickly wrote a note for Kevin and left it at the end of his bed for his friend to find, and then left.

Whilst the rest of the population might have been waiting for the train to take them home in a couple of days, Harry had plans. Quickly and quietly he trotted through the halls to the huge oak doors that led to outside. It was early enough that no one else seemed to be awake, and the Great Hall was empty of everyone, so he had no problems heading out and back to the forest.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Harry huffed as he waited on the street as his knocks remained unanswered. His long black cloak was drawing a few odd looks, but it looked close enough to a coat that most people just ignored him. He was just about to resort to trying to picking the lock when he finally heard movement the other side of the door.

"Mateo dear! It's been too long," the motherly woman immediately enveloped him in a hug.

"Mrs Hudson, I hope I'm not interrupting anything?" he said politely.

"Nothing at all, come in and I'll put the kettle on," he didn't have time to argue as the surprisingly strong woman dragged him through to the kitchen.

At least this time when he was forced to sit and make conversation he had something to talk about. Mrs Hudson took the news about his name without blinking, and she happily fell into a tale of her ex-husband and his 'group of friends' that all had different names. He wasn't certain, but Harry started to guess that Mr Hudson's 'friends' were probably more than just a harmless social group as she painted them to be.

After half an hour he managed to get away and practically fled up the stairs to the second flat where his true target should have been. Harry gingerly knocked on the door and tiptoed in, wary of weapons or company. It seemed that Sherlock was in the middle of one of his slumps, as there was a faint smell of decay in the air mingling with stale dusty air. Harry spotted a crumpled form crouched between the sofa and the bookcase against the wall.

Not sure whether tough love or a gentle hand was needed he hesitated, then went with his first instincts. Loudly he strode to the curtains and flung them open, ignoring the yelp of pain from the man, and slammed the window open wide.

"Morning Sherlock!" He said in an overly loud voice.

"Gentler," Sherlock groaned.

"No, you have answers I need. Now," Harry clomped into the kitchen and started making tea, forgoing milk completely once he saw the state of the fridge.

"That research you wanted?" he heard a faint voice call, although it sounded more alert than before.

"Yes, Voldemort is back and I need to kill him. Preferably quickly, so any information you managed to dig up will be appreciated," Harry replied as he quickly filled two mugs with hot water and returned to the living room.

He was glad to see that Sherlock had managed to muster some energy to get up, and was now standing and squinting at the sunlight.

"Tea," he said as he thrust the mug into the taller man's hands.

"Bottom shelf, left hand side," Sherlock replied as he blew on the drink.

Harry quickly turned around and looked in the general direction that Sherlock indicated. There were a number of files tucked onto the shelf, but one looked older and more used than the others. On a hunch he quickly pulled it out and pulled it open. A familiar looking young face stared back at him.

"This will take all day to read," Harry said in surprise.

"You hired the best," Sherlock smirked.

"Voldemort is so screwed," Harry grinned as he took a seat and started reading.

"So, how's your father doing?" Sherlock asked after a surprisingly long time.

Harry started and stopped reading the school report he had made it to. He was surprised at how long it had taken Sherlock to break the silence, considering the man's track record at respecting other people's need to concentrate. However, as he looked at the detective, Harry wasn't actually that surprised. Put simply the man looked a mess, and had probably taken the half hour or so purely to get his own mind in order for a conversation.

"Back home, unconscious but safe," Harry didn't even ask how Sherlock knew. "I'm waiting for a call."

"School?"

"A friend died, a teacher was a murderer in disguise, and a megalomaniac was resurrected… Oh and I'm going by my real name. It's Harry, by the way," Harry summarised. "So about average for that school."

"Your plan?"

"Read all this, _when I'm allowed_ , get everyone together, find the horcruxes, and then kill Voldemort," Harry summarised, quickly flicking through the file.

"There's a page at the end that recaps everything, with my own thoughts," Sherlock's tone let Harry know that he was smirking as he spoke.

"You could have said," Harry huffed and slapped the file closed.

"Where would the fun be in that?" Sherlock replied.

"Was the initial payment enough, or do I owe you more?" he decided not to focus on the mind games Sherlock seemed to relish playing.

"I believe it was sufficient," Sherlock shrugged. "If you need more information then you know where to find me."

"Thanks for all this Sherlock, it'll help immensely I know it. If you hear of a largescale fight breaking out, can you try and make sure that it's Lestrade that gets there first, but after the dust settles? Might be nice to have a friendly face to chat to once it's all over," Harry asked.

"If he isn't being insufferable then maybe I will ask him," Sherlock didn't promise. However Harry knew he would.

"Thanks, I need to stop off at another place before I head back home. You have my number don't you?" he checked before he left.

"Lestrade or John will," Sherlock waved him away.

"I'll make sure to remind Lestrade to send you an interesting case," Harry grinned and waved his hand as he headed back out again, file tucked under his arm.

Once outside again he quickly walked away to make sure Mrs Hudson couldn't call him back for another drink. Only when he was a good five minutes away did Harry stop and start looking for somewhere hidden and inconspicuous to get on with his next part of his plan. Finally he found a secluded spot between a couple of large bins in an alley, not exactly glamorous but hidden at least.

From one of his pockets he wiggled out a rather large and tarnished hand mirror.

"Sirius," he called quietly and waited as the link was made and for Sirius to notice.

Unlike Sherlock Sirius picked up almost immediately.

"Harry!" the man said joyfully. "Where are you, that wall isn't part of Hogwarts?"

"I'm in London, don't you live somewhere in the city?" Harry asked.

"Yep, want to meet at the Leaky Cauldron and I'll pick you up?"

"Can't I just come to yours?" Harry frowned.

"Not exactly, there's a few charms on the place that hides it. I'll have to show you," Sirius explained.

"Fair enough then, I'll be there in half an hour," Harry guessed as he quickly calculated how far away the pub was.

He could have teleported to the pub, but not knowing somewhere nearby that was isolated to appear in would have been risky. And being in London was quite a pleasant change from the isolated mountains of Scotland, so instead the teen enjoyed using buses and the tube to wriggle across the city to the magical entrance to Diagon Alley.

The last time he had entered the Leaky Cauldron no one had batted an eyelid, he was just another Hogwarts student albeit with an interesting family tagging along. Now everyone halted and turned to stare at him. For a split second Harry wandered why, and then he remembered the Skeeter article about his true name.

Thankfully before anyone could come to their senses and crowd him a familiar figure practically bundled him back out the door.

"Nice to see you too Sirius," Harry said once he had managed to get a little space from the other man.

"I thought you might like to avoid being attacked by fans," Sirius shrugged.

"Definitely."

"Come on, we may as well walk to the family abode," Sirius gestured which way to go and led on.

With both of them looking relatively normal, even with Harry's cloak and Sirius' rather formal red velvet waistcoat, they easily walked amongst the muggles through the streets. On a silent agreement both of them avoided talking about anything related to Hogwarts or what had gone on over the last few days. Instead they talked about places they knew of in London that they liked, and happily shared their favourite restaurants. Apparently Sirius hadn't been half as dismissive of muggles as the rest of his family and he had plenty of places he wanted to take Harry.

"Alright, we're here," Sirius reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. "Read this and look at the houses across the road."

Harry did as he was told, a bit at a loss for the reasoning. Just as he was going to ask why he stopped and stared as a house appeared from nowhere.

"Fidelius charm, it hides a building completely from everyone who doesn't know where it is. My family were always paranoid and pretentious, now it is a safe house that we can use to fight this war," Sirius explained.

"None of your relatives know of it?" Harry asked as they carefully crossed the street and headed up the steps.

"They did, but we destroyed all the old wards and set up new ones when I inherited the place. Even though they know the house exists, they can't get in now," Sirius explained.

The inside of the house was dull and in need of modernisation, however it was lit with many candles and was at least clean.

"You should have seen this place when I first came back here after being in Azkaban, it was an absolute mess," Sirius gestured for Harry to follow him. "The old house elf had gone senile and was worse than useless. It took a lot of work to get him back into the swing of things, so we got in some extra help to keep him company."

At the end of the corridor was a door that lead to a kitchen, which had one occupant. When they entered Remus dropped the newspaper he had been reading with a guilty look on his face.

"What are they saying now?" Harry sighed.

"That there's chaos at the school, there's been a murder and you've gone insane ranting about You-Know-Who," Remus said sheepishly.

"Nothing new then, it's all bollocks," almost cheerfully Harry scooped up the newspaper and flung it in the fire.

"Hey, I hadn't gotten the Quidditch scores yet," Sirius protested.

Remus nudged him in the ribs before forcing his friend into a seat. "You're out of school early."

"There's nothing happening for the next three days before the end of school, so I thought I should get a head start," Harry dropped the file on the table.

"What's that?" Sirius reached forward, only to have Harry slap his hands away.

" _My_ file on everything a friend could find out about Voldemort when he was a kid. My theory is we can use it to find the Horcruxes," Harry explained.

Remus and Sirius started and stared at each other before Remus spoke for the both of them. "How?"

"I'm glad you asked," Harry grinned and flicked open the file.


	68. Chapter 68 - Best Laid Plans

**Chapter Sixty Eight – Best Laid Plans Go To Waste**

Four days later Harry was attempting to hide. He had rung Tony a couple of times, only to receive the same disheartening news that Bruce was still asleep. So he had remained in England with his other Godfather and had spent his time plotting and planning. With the combined deviousness of two of the remaining Marauders, and that had been a shock and a half learning his father had helped create the Weasley twin's maps, Harry was pretty sure that he had built an ironclad case to get Dumbledore to help them.

Which was why he was hiding.

Apparently Dumbledore was under the impression he had gone home, and so had arranged for his private army to meet at Grimmauld Place. Sirius and Remus had agreed that Harry should gatecrash the meeting seeing as he was an integral part of the war, even if Dumbledore didn't seem to have any plans for him to join the Order.

He had been given his own room, a reasonably small but clean and cosy room on the same floor as the other two occupants of the house. Once again he had the hand mirror in hand as he waited for the signal. As soon as the pommel on the handle started flashing Harry snuck through the door and down the stairs. Apparently there had been a full size portrait of Sirius' mother on one wall, but after months of research Sirius had removed it and burnt it. So at least he didn't have to worry about that waking up.

"Evening everyone," Harry said politely as he walked through the kitchen door and into the secret meeting.

"Harry!" Dumbledore said.

Harry had to hide a smile, incredibly happy at being able to get one over on the apparently omniscient wizard. There were a wide variety of people around the table and Harry did a quick scan before returning his attention to the headmaster.

He spotted Snape, the Weasley parents, Sirius and Remus, and Moody. There was a tall dark skinned man, sitting next to a small wiry woman. A bald shifty looking man sat slightly further down, with a straw-coloured haired man, and a couple of red-headed men that Harry could guess who they were related to.

"What are you doing here Mr Banner?" McGonagall appeared from the fire.

"Making sure that I am kept in the loop," he stated. "I already knew of the Order and I guessed rightly that you would be planning. Seeing as it's me that Voldemort is targeting I think I have the right to stay in the loop."

"You do not need to concern yourself with the plans of adults," Snape said.

"I beg to differ sir, if I have to kill Voldemort then I deserve to know what's going on," Harry countered, with no malice in his voice. And to solidify his point he walked up the table and sat down in a spare seat next to the two redheads.

"There is sensitive information that we were going to share that you cannot know, for their safety," Albus tried again.

"And I have sensitive information that they cannot know, for their _safety_ ," Harry shot back. "If it helps I am reasonably well equipped with mental defences, enough to keep your secrets."

"Severus?" Albus turned to their spy.

"He is not the worst in the room," Severus admitted.

"Good," Harry clapped his hands together and grinned. "So, council of war?"

Albus grudgingly continued the meeting, outlining plans for each member of the Order. Harry was surprised at how many people were being wasted on guarding the physical record of the prophecy about him and Voldemort.

"Why can't we just take it and get rid of it?" Harry piped up.

"Only you can touch it, it's a safety feature that means only those a prophecy relates to can hear their future," Severus explained.

"And I can't go get it because…?"

No one seemed to have a good answer for that, and Harry sighed. "I'm going to think up a plan for that."

"Run it by me before you go and do something we'll all regret," Dumbledore said with a commanding tone to his voice.

After a bit more planning, which again seemed to involve a lot of waiting and standing around, the group broke up.

"Professors, could I ask you to stay for a bit longer?" Harry asked loudly as the adults slowly started to weave towards the fireplace.

He was given a lot of odd looks by the rest of the Order, but eventually the room cleared to just have six of them there. Dumbledore gave two of their number a pointed look, which they ignored.

"Sirius and Remus know everything I know, so there really is no point in them leaving," Harry shrugged.

"Very well, what was it that you wanted to discuss Mr Banner?" Dumbledore said formally.

"Items of power linked to Hogwarts," Harry stated. "What could they be?"

"I fail to see the importance?" McGonagall glanced around at everyone.

"This is information that Professor Snape cannot know, if he is compromised," Harry said with an apologetic look to the mentioned man. "But knowing what I need to know could end the war a hell of a lot quicker."

"Language Mr Banner," Professor McGonagall said automatically.

"Each of the Founders supposedly had an item that they treasured and left behind," Snape said slowly. "Godric had his sword that you used in your second year. Salazar had a necklace."

"Helga had a cup and Rowena had a Diadem," Dumbledore finished. "But they've been lost for decades at least."

"That's a shame," Harry acted thwarted. "Thanks anyway."

After the three finally left he turned to the remaining men and grinned. "Now we know what to look for."

"Hang on…" Sirius frowned and seemed to be thinking hard, before he shot off.

"Any idea what he's planning?" Harry asked the werewolf, who merely shrugged in reply.

Before either of them could move to follow him Sirius bounded back into the room. Gingerly in one hand he clutched something on a chain, which he placed with almost exaggerated care onto the table.

"Tell me if I'm wrong, but that looks like a snake," Sirius pointed at the front.

"Holy shit, do you think?" Harry swore as he bent low to inspect it.

"How would that be here?" Remus instead took a step back warily.

"Regulus, my brother," Sirius said quietly with realisation. "He was a Death Eater. The last time we spoke was the night he showed me the Mark, I left and cried my eyes out that night."

"Do you think Voldemort gave this to him?" Harry asked.

"I doubt it, Snape never reported Regulus as being more than just a low level supporter when he vanished. If he gave anything precious to anyone it would have been a high ranking Death Eater."

"Like Snape or the Malfoys, or your cousin," Remus listed.

"Well he gave his diary to Lucius so he did give some things away without telling them of their importance," Harry pointed out.

"So that's two down," Sirius said happily.

"Well, we need to figure out how to destroy it first, but yes two found," Harry agreed, not wanting to correct the man.

"What about the cup and the diadem? Any ideas?" Sirius turned the smarter Marauder.

"What did your friend think of Voldemort?" Remus turned to Harry.

"He is self obsessed and determined to show off how powerful he is. He hates his family yet seems incapable of forgetting them or his past. He'd likely try to associate himself with anything of note so that people wouldn't forget him. Although he hated his family he's determined to raise their status once more so that he can be proud of his name once more," Harry summarised.

"Hence the Hogwarts items… Any chance something could be hidden in the school?" Remus suggested.

"How would he smuggle anything in there?" Harry countered.

"The same way we always got things into school," Sirius grinned. "Do you remember that party in sixth year Moony, the one with the firewhiskey?"

"The next morning was worse than any transformation I've been through, I was sick for three days," Remus grimaced at the memory.

"We can get in and go searching during the holidays," Sirius decided.

"Anywhere else he might want to hide something?"

"Gringotts is impenetrable, but for the same reason we couldn't get anything he hid there," Remus brought up another idea.

"Nothing is unsinkable," Harry argued, then sighed at their blank looks. "There was a famous muggle ship called the Titanic that was advertised as unsinkable… it sank."

"Point taken," Sirius chuckled. "Let's go rob a bank then!"

"Not exactly what I had in mind," Harry spoke quickly. "What time does the bank close?"

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Dumbledore stood and merely stared for a good solid ten minutes. Harry took the time to merely stand and look smug, with Sirius unknowingly mimicking him behind his shoulder.

"How?" Dumbledore finally said as he sank into a chair, still staring at four items sitting innocently on the table.

"You aren't the only one who can put the dots together," Harry said smugly. "If you weren't so terrified of losing control, or were incapable of sharing responsibilities, then this war would have been over before it even started."

"Where did you find them all?" Dumbledore asked.

"The ring was at Riddle's house, hidden behind some very nasty curses and a Lethifold. The Cup was in Gringotts, and we managed to convince the Goblins to do a random search for dark objects. They handed it over willingly. The Diadem was at Hogwarts under your nose. And finally the Locket was here."

Dumbledore visibly started at that, and Sirius took up explaining. "Apparently Regulus wasn't as bad as I thought, he somehow found it and tried to destroy it. His spells backfired, but Kreacher kept it safe and has been trying to destroy it too, probably why he's off his rocker now."

"So all that's left is the man himself, possibly something else close to his heart," Remus summarised.

"My bet is on his pet snake Snape mentioned, he seemed pretty damn attached to it in the graveyard," Harry voted.

"There is one more piece," Dumbledore said gravely.

"Well what is it? We can go find it," Sirius said cockily.

"It requires no finding, but perhaps the greatest sacrifice of all beyond destroying some historically important artefacts," Dumbledore built up.

"Cut the dramatics, I know you're referring to me," Harry cut in before Dumbledore could say more.

"What?" Sirius barked in a panic.

Harry was suddenly turned around by two powerful hands, and found himself staring into the wild eyes of his Godfather.

"How? How are you a Horcrux? You're living, sane, happy, _normal_!"

"Since when have I been normal?" Harry chuckled.

" _Now is not the time for laughing!_ " Sirius thundered.

"Sirius, chill," Harry grabbed the man with both hands on either side of his face and forced the man to stop.

"You knew?" Dumbledore if it was possible sounded even more shocked.

"Knew and sorted it," Harry said happily. "In my year out I managed to find help to fix it."

"So you're not…?" Sirius eyes were boring into his, begging him to be telling the truth.

"I'm as much of a Horcrux as you are," Harry said firmly.

He then found himself enveloped into a tight hug, so tight that he almost couldn't breathe. After a while Sirius let him go and happily clapped him on the back. Harry just managed to make out Remus' joyful look before they turned back to Dumbledore.

"So, two left," Harry said happily.

"You have been busy," Dumbledore said.

"That I have," Harry agreed. "So, any more information I should have before we go any further?"

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"You are insane," Snape said as he stared at all the people in the room.

"Which is why this will probably work," Harry said, hiding his uncertainty.

"He'll just kill you as soon as I bring you in," Snape continued.

"Not necessarily, we both know that he loves a good villain monologue," Harry pointed out. Snape not answering was enough of an answer for him.

"How exactly is everyone else going to follow us?" the spy asked for clarification.

"With this," the teen held up his wrist, with the faintly glowing bracelet. "It's not just a fashion statement. Tony built in a tracking device, he can follow it anywhere. In theory, it'll work just like your Dark Mark."

Harry left out how much of the theory was still unproven with apparition, no one needed to know that apart from him and Tony.

Around them an assembled group of people watched with baited breath. Sirius and Remus had barely left Harry's side since his arrival five days ago. Dumbledore had been in and out of Grimmauld Place since they had shown him the Horcruxes. Harry had only left to gather his adoptive family, minus his still asleep father. However, the number of Avengers that he trusted with such a secret as Magic was severely limited. With Bruce out of action, and Thor off world, that left only four of them to fight alongside Sirus and Remus.

However they hadn't told Dumbledore of their plan, and muggles outnumbered magicals in the gathering in the kitchen. Perhaps their success over the last week had gone to their heads, but Sirius and Remus had agreed that they likely didn't need assistance in destroying the last two horcruxes.

"What do you want me to say?" Snape sighed and seemed to relent.

"Nothing, but can you pass him this memory?" Harry asked as he offered over a vial with a silvery liquid in.

The severe potions master took the vial without comment. He quickly poked his wand to his bared left forearm and winced as the tattoo flared an even darker shade for a second.

"Thank you Professor Snape, I really am grateful for everything you've done," Harry said in as much of a sincere tone as he could manage.

Again Snape failed to speak but he nodded in acknowledgement before he winced as the Dark Mark flared black again. "He's expecting me."

"Good luck," Harry said as the man swept out the door to apparate.

"Everyone ready?" Tony asked as he handed two small metal discs with a blue glowing centre to Remus and Sirius.

"What are these?" Remus asked as he was given one.

"Signal trackers," Tony said as if that explained everything.

"You're going to be following me, and the signal from my bracelet. Apparate when you are thinking of that disc in your hand and it will lead to me," Harry filled in the blanks.

"How did you make this?" Sirius asked as he turned his over in his hands.

"Once I broke the whole 'magic short circuits electricity' problem getting them to work together was actually relatively easy," Tony shrugged. "I managed to find a couple of wizards in Stark Enterprises who were happy to take on a few extra hours for a lot of danger pay."

The assembled adults waited nervously for the return of one of the least liked members of the Order. Harry could see their view, the man didn't abide by social niceties and made five of his hours a week a living hell. However no one could deny that working for a psychotic man probably did leave the spy with a few unresolved issues that could explain some of his behaviour. He hadn't had to deal with the man outside of school though, so perhaps his antisocial behaviour got even worse at night time.

Eventually they were rewarded with the front door slamming again. Snape didn't bother even entering the kitchen this time, he merely opened the door into the room and gestured for the teen to follow him.

"He has agreed to a meeting, it's at the graveyard I believe he was resurrected in. Come," Snape said shortly.

Harry pulled his hand out of his pockets ready to follow. However, he made sure to brush his fingers against something important before he fully withdrew them.

"See you all in five minutes, good luck," Harry nodded to Sirius and Remus.

"Same to you, we're going to have fun," Sirius smiled grimly.

Without waiting further Harry turned and followed Professor Snape along the corridor to the front steps. Snape offered his forearm and Harry tightly gripped it. However they didn't immediately leave.

"Are you sure about this?" Snape asked one final time.

"It's the only way to end this now. If we don't then how many people will die?" Harry said with determination.

Snape inclined his head in agreement before he apparated.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

Appropriately for such a meeting the clouds were rolling in and rumbles of thunder sounded in the distance. The sun had already set, and Harry chuckled at the sheer number of clichés that abounded as he looked over the graveyard.

"Do you think he can even come out during the day?" he muttered to himself.

Snape, if he heard his comment, completely ignored him in favour of sweeping forward and pushed between two of the Death Eaters and into the middle of the circle. The cloaked figures didn't even react to his arrival, or how he knelt in front of their leader who waited like a corpse in the centre of his men.

"I have brought him my Lord," Snape intoned, no emotion in his voice.

"Well done my loyal follower," Voldemort hissed.

"Potter," Snape said by way of an order.

"Show time," Harry whispered to himself for motivation before stepping forward.

Rather contemptuously he pushed between the two Death Eaters again and walked into the empty space in the circle.

"Voldemort," Harry said respectfully as he nodded his head. Calmly he clasped his hands behind his back in a relaxed stance.

"Harry Potter. I must admit that I am surprised to see you again, and using my spy as a messenger," Voldemort replied in monotone.

"It seemed the easiest way to contact you, rather than just waiting for you to appear," Harry shrugged.

"And why would you wish to seek me out?" Voldemort seemed impatient with Harry dodging the direct answer.

"Probably for the same reason you would want to find me eventually," Harry mentally grinned.

"And you think that you can end this already? You think that you can defeat me?" Voldemort sneered.

Around them the robed Death Eaters chuckled at their leader's joke.

"Perhaps, although I am willing to talk about the terms of your surrender," Harry smiled politely back.

And as he saw the skin around Voldemort's eyes tighten, Harry exploded into action. In one hand he had a small item gripped tightly, and as he dodged the first spell he rubbed his thumb across the flat surface. Then he slammed a hand onto the bracelet that was still sealed tightly on his wrist. He only just hit the floor from his dive as the world around him exploded with popping and whirring.

Harry rolled and jumped to his feet again, just in time to see a blast of energy shot past him and hit one of the robed men.

"Good shot Tony!" He laughed as he too sent a blast of energy in front of him and another robed man fell.

By his reckoning there were fifty Death Eaters, and seven of them at the time. Tony may be able to deflect spells with his armour, if the upgrades worked, and Steve probably would also be successful with his shield. But Nat and Clint could only work from the shadows. It may be how they worked best, but it did mean that five of them were being targeted by fifty psychopaths.

So Harry was rather happy when he heard the distinctive pops of more people apparating onto the scene.

"We have incoming!" he heard Steve shout.

"Do not engage them, they're friends!" Harry bellowed back as he ducked a nasty purple curse.

And as if to prove his point one of the smaller groups of robed people sent a red spell straight into the masked face of a Death Eater trying to curse Tony. Thirteen to fifty, now forty eight or so, was not great odds but Harry was happier.

Whilst the Death Eaters tried to down the wily Avengers the smaller robed individuals sowed chaos, moving quickly and randomly around grave stones and in the shadows.

But Harry ignored everything in preference of focussing on the man who had started this all so many years ago. Harry kept Voldemort's attention on himself, purposefully sending annoying little hexes almost constantly. Voldemort had time to dodge or block the spells, and to retaliate, but not to really stop and look at the progress of the battle around them.

Bodies fell around them as Harry continued to bait and annoy Voldemort, waiting for the opportune moment. He finally saw it, when out of the corner of his eye he saw an unbelievably large shape slither through the grass towards him.

 _"Hey snakey snakey,"_ Harry hissed.

Nagini paused in surprise as she heard another Parselmouth speak to her. That was all Harry needed, and he quickly moved into action by sending a spell towards her.

Although he had mostly been at spending his spare time in Grimmauld Place, he hadn't been idle. Fiendfyre was something known to destroy horcruxes, so Harry didn't hesitate when he sent the barely controlled ball of flames towards the reptile. He just had time to muse how it seemed to form into a snarling snout of some carnivorous mammal before it impacted with the snake.

It seemed that the entire graveyard paused for a few seconds as the sounds of two screams ripping above the sounds of the battle. Nagini flailed and shrieked as she burnt alive by the magical flames. But also Voldemort screamed as he fell to his knees.

Before anyone had a chance to move, and Voldemort had barely hit the ground with his knees, Harry was already moving. He launched himself the fifteen metres that had slowly been formed between them and punched Voldemort in the face.

The look of shock that crossed the snake-like features almost had Harry bursting out laughing, but instead he followed the physical assault up with a magical blast that sent the psychopath backwards. Not letting up, he followed and came to rest next to the older man.

"Resurrect yourself from this with no horcruxes," he said with a grim smile as he tightened his grip on Voldemort's neck and sent a pulse of energy out.

Harry had already seen how effective that method of execution was with Ross, but the second time around it was infinitely more satisfying. Without waiting for anyone else to interfere he quickly sent another blast of Fiendfyre towards the decapitated body. Harry almost gleefully watched as the flesh was reduced to a pile of ash.

He didn't hang around after the body had disintegrated and instead turned to the people who were milling around in the graveyard. With the end of their leader the Death Eaters were unsure of what to do.

"Listen to me Death Eaters," Harry shouted, making sure that his voice could carry to everyone present. "Unless you are completely blind you can see your leader is dead. And trust me, is not coming back this time around. I swear my magic on it."

That promise seemed to erode a large portion of the defiant air still lingering around some of the black robed men.

"I do not care why you followed Voldemort, I only care about what we do next. If you wish to leave, and you'll drop his stupid notion of blood supremacy and conquering the Muggles then feel free to leave. If you still want to carry on with his aims, well we have a problem."

A few people apparated straight away, and in trickles more left over the next few minutes. Soon there were ten left over.

"Do you really want this? Be aware that none of you are leaving here alive if this truly is the direction you wish to follow," Harry said sombrely.

"No jumped up Half-Blood is going to dictate to me what I do," one of the masked men snarled.

The Death Eater fired off a curse which Harry rolled under and sent his own curse back. The Death Eater was not so agile and crumpled as the green light hit him.

"You do realise that your beloved Voldemort was a Half-Blood too?" Harry pointed out.

Two of the others shuffled uneasily before apparating out. The seven that were left attacked as one, but were easily taken down by a mixture of bullets, arrows, repulsor blasts, and spells.

"So, time to destroy the Horcruxes then a party!" Harry said after staring down at the bodies for a few seconds.

"They all dead?" Tony nudged one with a foot.

"Yep, they aren't getting back up again," Harry nodded with certainty.

"What are we going to do these all?" Remus nudged a cloaked figure with his boot.

"I have a friend in the police force who was primed for this, but I think we managed to avoid the attention of the Muggles…" Harry thought for a few seconds. "We need to show the Ministry that these people were Death Eaters."

 _"Morsmordre!"_ a deep voice called out.

Soon the scene was bathed in a sickly green light from the ghostly symbol curling in the sky. Harry looked over to the black figure who appeared out of the shadows and nodded approvingly.

"Good idea," he turned to look at the Dark Mark for hopefully the final time.

"Professor Snape?" Cedric said warily.

"It's alright, he's been spying on Voldemort for Dumbledore," Harry quickly explained.

"That explains a lot," Fred said slowly. His twin nodded by his side.

"Anyway, can these guys come back with us? There's a few things we need to destroy before this is all truly over," Harry turned to Sirius.

"Snape can side-along apparate three more of them, Remus and I can take another two each," Sirius nodded.

"Grab on guys, just one more spell and then I'm cracking out the firewhiskey… or butterbeers," Harry added as he caught Snape's disapproving stare.

 **·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·**

 **DEATH EATERS DISCOVERED DEAD!  
By Rita Skeeter**

 **The Department of Magical Law Enforcement was in turmoil last night as reports of the Dark Mark flooded in. Apart from the false alarm of it being cast at the Quidditch World Cup, the last time the symbol has been seen was during the last Wizarding War. Understandably, many people were concerned.**

 **Reports from the scene are still unclear, but what is clear is multiple bodies have been found wearing the robes used by Death Eaters before. We are still waiting on news as to whether the bodies in question bear the Dark Mark. The DMLE refused to comment.**

 **For more details on the Death Eaters see pages 3  
For more information on You-Know-Who's rise see page 4  
For the major events of the Last Wizarding War see page 5**

"Well it had the effect we wanted," Harry said smugly as he put the paper down and helped himself to some toast.

"They haven't come to any conclusions yet though," Hermione had read the short piece over his shoulder.

"With something like that they can't just dive straight in with accusations. We don't know who we killed last night, and there could be some serious repercussions," Remus pointed out.

"At least Skeeter is being quite to the point and unbiased," Kevin said happily.

"If she tried to put slanderous rumours in here it could have a major backlash on her," Cedric poured himself coffee.

"For all I care now they could publish that Fudge killed Voldemort," Harry stood up and shrugged his jacket back on.

"Where are you off to?" Sirius had only just walked into the room to see his godson getting ready to leave.

"I've still got a bit of a to-do list to get through," Harry pointed out. "Defeat Dark Lord, check. Actually get to talk to my dad for the first time in two years is next on the list."

"You are coming back though aren't you?" Neville asked quickly.

"Of course, you guys wouldn't have any fun without my bad luck ruining it all," Harry grinned mischieviously. "We still have three more years for me to muck up."

And without further ado he quickly slid from the room and once in the corridor he easily teleported to America. He had aimed to arrive in his room to avoid startling anyone or interrupting something, and he was still pleasantly surprised when he got it spot on. Quickly he trotted through the quiet building, aware that it was only four in the morning and most sane people would be asleep.

He was soon tiptoeing through the doors to his dad's room and sank into the chair next to the bed. Bruce was looking a lot healthier than when he had last saw him, there was colour to his cheeks and the supplements that had been given to him had added a small amount of weight to his face. The full face mask was gone, and all that was left was the small nasal tube to ease breathing.

Harry made himself comfortable and picked up a discarded book that had been left on the table to idly flick through. It wasn't really his cup of tea, but it would do.

However he didn't have to wait long, as only an hour later the heart monitor beeped plaintively. A quick check had Harry dropping the book and leaning forward. Slowly Bruce's breathing increased as well, and soon his eyelids were flickering erratically.

"Hey Dad," Harry said quietly, a huge grin threatening to split his face.

"Mateo?" came a mumbled reply.

"Ah, it's Harry now," Harry corrected him.

"Hmm? What?" Bruce was regaining consciousness surprisingly quickly.

Harry had been worried that it was taking him a long time to wake up, and whether the Hulk's regenerative capabilities had been broken. However Bruce's almost immediate awareness proved that it was only a temporary relapse.

"Why are you going by Harry again?" Bruce asked again.

"You are not going to believe the story I have to tell you," Harry said happily.


	69. Chapter 69 - Nineteen Years Later

**A/N: Yes, yes I went there...**

 **Chapter Sixty Nine - Nineteen Years Later**

"Harry!" the man in question barely had time to turn around before he was tackled by another body.

"Woah, steady on Kevin!" he laughed as the blonde haired man disentangled himself and stood upright.

"You know for someone who can teleport across the ocean at will you are useless at visiting," Kevin said admonishingly.

"What can I say? Life keeps me busy," Harry shrugged and the pair carried on walking. "You still living in Muggle London?"

"The nightlife is infinitely more interesting," Kevin nodded. "Plus Sarah is happier with what she's used to."

"Oh yes, it's got to be getting close to time now too right?"

"Three weeks, her mum has been hovering around as much as she can, I can't tell who's more excited," Kevin said happily.

"I'm surprised you managed to sneak away," Harry turned a mock-severe look on his friend.

"It's the anniversary, Sarah knows our tradition," Kevin waved away the concern, then turned the tables. "And you're one to talk! Surely with you missing for one night the world is going to get invaded, or someone will blow up another city, or Loki will return again, or Hydra will resurface or-"

"Alright alright!" Harry held his hands up in surrender. "The Avengers can survive for one night, or the X-Men can take a turn, or the Fantastic Four, or Dr Strange. There are plenty of other people around to hold the fort for one night."

"I still can't believe you are in charge of all of them," Kevin shook his head and whistled.

"It was the only way of getting peace, much to the disgust of some," Harry said darkly.

"Just because they didn't get to tattoo everyone remotely interesting," Kevin snorted in agreement. "Tony gotten used to the idea yet, of you being allowed to boss him around?"

"Not yet, although Dad and Nat keep him in line," Harry chuckled at a memory. "Hey, remind me to congratulate Hermione."

"If you didn't send her a gift already then you are so dead," Kevin warned him.

"Tony wanted me to send her a trophy to rival the Triwizard Cup, engraved with _'Best Minister of Magic Ever'_ but I managed to send her something more suited to her tastes," Harry had to raise his voice over Kevin's laughter.

"A book?"

"Yup, a couple of rare ones I found in Salem. One was about plants which should keep Neville happy too, if she ever takes it home and doesn't keep it in her private collection in the office."

"Hey, we can see the twins' new shop whilst we are in the Leaky Cauldron," Kevin remembered. "They've just expanded _again_."

"And there was their mum saying they'd never amount to much," Harry smiled in happiness at their success. "They must own the biggest shop in the street now, and their branches in Hogsmeade and Paris."

"Salem next, if you ever get bored of keeping superhumans in line I'm sure they'd love to hire you as the manager of that shop. Although I have to admit 'Watcher Banner, guardian of all' sounds better than Manager Banner, seller of all."

"Urgh, I'd rather not be a manager of a joke shop," Harry groaned.

"Backtracking a bit, is that bookshop in Salem any good?" Kevin asked.

"It's brilliant, I could spend a week in there easy. Why?"

"Well, Cedric's starting at Hogwarts in September isn't he," they turned the last corner to see the Leaky Cauldron appear in sight.

"Is he?" Harry said in surprise.

"Oh, don't let me spoil the surprise. Act like you didn't know when he tells you," Kevin said quickly.

"Why didn't he tell me? When did you hear?" Harry asked indignantly.

"Last week when we bumped into each other in Flourish and Blotts. He probably was going to tell everyone tonight but was a bit excited as he'd just heard himself," Kevin explained.

"Fair enough," Harry nodded and calmed down to avoid arousing suspicion. "What's he teaching?"

"Transfiguration, McGonagall's finally retiring," Kevin revealed.

"There was a huge section on Transfiguration, I'll bring a few over in September."

"We going to gatecrash and throw him a party the night before term starts?" Kevin sensed a plot.

"Oh of course, and I know the twins will be on board," Harry grinned evilly.

They reached the door of the pub and stood staring at it for a few seconds.

"It's odd how our lives have changed isn't it?" Kevin said after a while.

"I wouldn't change it for the world though," Harry agreed. "After you Mr Entwhistle."

"No no, after you Mr Banner," Kevin insisted.

"Age before beauty," Harry smirked.

"Ah but I wouldn't dare precede the illustrious Watcher," Kevin bowed to Harry.

"At least they didn't decide to call me Mugwump, I would have quit on the spot."

They both entered the Leaky Cauldron chuckling at that, and were received with a miniature roar of greeting.

* * *

 **A/N: And if you hadn't guessed, that is the end of my tale. I honestly don't think I need to add any more... I've tied up a few loose ends and it's at a nice place to stop in my opinion.**

 **As I have said with every chapter (but I'll repeat here) thank you to EVERYONE who left reviews, favourited or followed this story. I started out finding it difficult to share my work for fear of people not enjoying it. However, after a few flamers, I've learnt to just work for the hell of it. But your support has made the journey infinitely more enjoyable as I can see how many of you like my work too.  
It has been a long journey, we've got to be close to 350K words now. Thank you for walking it with me.**


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